


Faces

by blythechild



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bodyswap, Break Up, Caretaking, Coffee Shops, Doomed Timelines, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fanart, First Meetings, First Time, Injury Recovery, Inspired by a Movie, Isolation, Loneliness, M/M, Meet-Cute, Opposites Attract, Phone Calls & Telephones, Revelations, Secrets, Separations, Sexual Confusion, Sexual Content, Strangers, Texting, Unexplained Magic, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Weird Plot Shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-02-25 22:45:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 110,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13222791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blythechild/pseuds/blythechild
Summary: Every three days, a man wakes up in a different body. There's no controlling it and no way to prepare for it. All he can do is make the best of his new face with the time he has.This is a work of fanfiction and as such I do claim ownership over the characters herein. It was created as a personal amusement. This story contains adult themes and situations, and should not be read by those under the age of 18. The included artwork is mine and I claim all copyrights over it. Please do not repost it anywhere without permission.





	1. Day 4,015

**Author's Note:**

> Happy New Year!
> 
> The basis of this story is taken from Drake Doremus's short film _The Beauty Inside_. Chapter updates will happen weekly, on Sundays.

[ ](https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/blythechild/6784666/507992/507992_original.png)

Math can’t teach you everything.

He knows that it’s the universal language – that it’s the key to unlocking so many secrets that the universe teases us with. It can identify, calculate, quantify, predict, theorize, conclude, locate. It does so many of these things better than any other entity could. It makes sense, it has rules. These things bring him comfort. But for all that math has given him, it has disappointed him in equal measure; it cannot explain his secret. Math can’t teach you how to be alone.

Every three days, he wakes up as a different person.

It’s been happening since he turned eighteen and today he turns twenty-nine. He can’t explain it or control it. He can only withstand it and try to carve a life around the fact that he’s had thousands of faces in the last eleven years while still being exactly the same person under those skins. He’s been fat and thin, male and female, old and young. He’s been deaf, paralyzed, infirm, ambidextrous, athletic, shut-in, limbless, pregnant, insane, speaking languages he didn’t understand… Once he woke up blind and lived in a state of huddled panic for three days terrified that he’d settle that way and never see anything again. But on the third night he fell asleep and woke as a relatively normal fifty-year old black woman.

Living this way has taken a lot of adjustment. He doesn’t have friends and he stopped talking to his family years ago. He has a tremendous amount of clothes for every conceivable height and body shape. He has shoes in every imaginable size. His grooming regimen is complicated and ever changing. He’s lucky that he grew up in the time of the internet, so that he can study remotely, work from home; he doesn’t need to _meet_ people in order to be survive. Unlike others of his generation, he has no social media presence. He’s not tagged in anyone’s Facebook photos, and no one searches for him on Twitter or Instagram. He Googled himself once and found a link to his high school yearbook complete with the photo of a face he’ll never have again. He angrily decided that Googling yourself is vain and pointless. He doesn’t use messaging or dating apps. His relationships are brief by necessity. And they have rules.

No one knows where he lives and he never brings anyone to his home, ever. He has two phones: one he uses for business that he always answers, and one that he gives out to other people that he never answers. He waits until the voicemail fills up and mass deletes the messages without listening to them. There’s never any point to them, and after a decade of “I thought we had a great time. Why haven’t you called me back?” recordings, he’s become numb to letting go. He can’t help it if they think he’s an asshole, and none of them will ever know how spending a night or two with them has saved him from going mad. It’s better this way – better for all of them – so he’s become very regimented about breaking up. He tells himself that, in this way, he’s not so different from everyone else. He’s _not_ alone. He’s _not_ unseen. He just… exists in a continuum of disposability, like someone emotionally stunted or commitment-phobic. The only variance is that it isn’t a neurotic choice on his part.

He’s taken up photography, not because it interests him on an artistic level, but because he is a scientist at heart and wants to document this process. He has thousands of photos, hard drives full of ever-improving self-portraits of his multiple faces. In the last few years, he’s decided to keep a video journal as well, offline of course, and the external drives of his faces confessing their three-day-long lives sit on his book shelves next to the archived photos. Sometimes he wonders why he does it – who is he keeping this for? He’ll never tell anyone, and no one sees enough of him to ask. Everyone says it’s what’s inside that counts, but all anyone ever sees is the outside, so it’s hard for him to find value in that sentiment. No one will ever know him, whether his insides count or not.

Since it’s his birthday, he indulges by going to one of his favorite places – a pokey, hole-in-the-wall café on the scuzzier side of the city. The owners don’t seem to worry about impoverished student types sitting at their tables and nursing the same coffee all afternoon, so he likes to go and people-watch sometimes. He sees new couples flirting, old couples fighting, up-and-comers bent feverishly over their laptops working on the next thing they imagine will change humanity, women crying alone, men staring blankly out the window at their uncertain futures, people with dogs and afros and crushing debt and fetishes and insecurities and smartphones and inline skates and secrets they think they’re hiding so, so well. He likes imagining their lives instead of his own. He wonders at the possibilities a person could unfurl for themselves over a lifetime rather than just three days. That really is something to contemplate.

“Hello.”

It’s also a great place to pick up. He smiles at her because she’s smiling at him. Sometimes he has to work pretty hard at this, but not today. Today he’s handsome and handsome does so much of life’s heavy lifting; you only realize that when you _aren’t_ handsome. She’s pretty. Flushed and strawberry blonde with a pile of philosophy books under her arm and a beaded bag that smells vaguely of nag champa. She’s wearing glasses that he knows she doesn’t need, and she’s young enough that she’s flaunting the fact she’s braless. She doesn’t hide the look she sweeps him with, and he thinks with a jolt of excitement and disappointment that this will be easy. _Happy birthday to me._ And he also knows that she won’t leave a message on his phone asking where he’s gone; she’s into temporary the same way he is. He can tell.

“Do you mind if I sit here?” She points to the empty seat across from him. “It’s packed in here today.”

“Not at all.” 

He stands quickly and gestures to the chair in a way that’s unfashionable and chivalrous, but that she will view as evidence of the unconscious patriarchy at work in all of us which will lead to a lively discussion on the matter with plenty of opportunities to flirt while pretending she doesn’t give a damn if he’s interested in screwing her or not. It’s a little upsetting that he already knows this, that he’s anticipated the winning combination of attraction and friction that will appeal to her before they’ve even begun. But, he reminds himself, he’s done this a lot, far more than she ever will. To her, it’s new and exciting. That will have to be enough for both of them. And when she finally takes him back to her dingy, one-room flat, after an evening spent arguing Adler’s theory of inferiority, too much warm beer, and a distinctly skunky joint, he has to admit that it’s still exciting in its own way. It’s always an incredible thing when one person lets you into them, however briefly. To be free of rules and expectations, to see them vulnerable, wild, more animal than person. It’s a gift he doesn’t take lightly or abuse, though he sees the irony in that given his transient nature. 

This one (Sage – her name is Sage, and he thinks that’s perfect for her) lays him down and takes whatever she wants from him without asking first. He’s fine with that and it makes him feel less usurious when he indulges his pleasure in it on the sly. She never asks for his name or his number either, and when he rises from her bed before dawn, he looks at the sleeping, tussled mess of her and can feel grateful for once without the guilt. It wasn’t such a bad way to turn twenty-nine. 

He walks from her place in the cool, purple hush of a city trying to rouse itself again, and for a split second he feels nothing but freedom. He could go back to that café in two days, sit next to her, and try striking up a conversation all over again. He could try to seduce her in a dozen different ways, as a dozen different people. He could try tempting her as a woman, or an old man. He could wait until he’s unappealing and then try befriending her – with sex off the table – try to crawl inside her mind. There _is_ freedom in being invisible. But this feeling only lasts until he catches sight of his house. Then he’s himself and only that, not the handsome skin he wears or the arrogance that comes with knowing someone while giving nothing of yourself away. He is alone and he gives nothing of himself because he _doesn’t matter._ There’s little to him but a closet full of mismatched clothes and the place where he hides the faces of the lives he’s borrowed but never really lived.

Math didn’t prepare him for this. Math can’t cure him. No theory he’s ever investigated can explain how he’s supposed to survive in this parallel universe of one. His delight in Sage has completely faded by the time he walks into the house he shares with a thousand nameless faces.


	2. Day 4,032

There’s nowhere to sit in the café today, and that sucks. He doesn’t want to people-watch but he does want to sit and read for a while. The walls of his house have been closing in lately and he thought a change of scene would be helpful. But now it seems like he walked forty-five minutes across town to have a coffee huddled on the weathered wooden bench outside in the November greyness. Great.

Who _are_ all these people anyway? He thinks at least eighty percent of them should be bored stiff in a lecture hall somewhere. It’s too early in the semester for everyone to be slacking off this hard. His eyes skim the crowd one last time and then he sees a spot way off in the corner away from the windows and unfortunately close to the washrooms. There’s an empty seat opposite an old guy in a suit. _A suit._ He idly wonders if the poor fellow is lost.

“Hey. This seat taken?”

The Suit looks up and he’s not as old as he thought from across the café. More like late forties, but aging rapidly due to stress. He’ll probably age a few years just sitting there sipping coffee amidst all this youthful exuberance. Though he seems determined to do so. It makes him smile to imagine this guy stumbling in here, thinking it’s a different sort of place, and then grimly settling in for the most painful coffee break of his life. People are so odd.

The Suit sweeps him from head to toe sharply, and his eyes feel like they are leaving tiny cuts all over his skin that will take a moment to bleed from the shock of it. Then he opens his hand across the table to the empty chair.

“No. By all means.”

His voice is quiet, a soothing rumble against the excited exclamations and laughter around them. It’s the exact opposite of his eyes: it asks you to come closer. The Suit retracts his hand as he sits, and then the guy stares off into nothing at all, making a liar of his inviting tone. His hands wrap around a mug of plain, black coffee. They are weathered and broad, too workman-ish for someone in a suit. And on closer inspection, his suit is quite fine, expensive and immaculate. His shirt is the whitest of whites, the collar crisp enough to seem painful, his cuffs precisely the correct length and his tie could be an example for all ties to aspire to throughout the ages of men. He feels scruffy by comparison sitting across from such precision. His sweater vest and crooked tie and beat-up messenger bag were chosen for this place, but now he feels embarrassingly underdressed.

“You don’t know me,” The Suit says without looking at him.

“Pardon?”

“You’re staring. Perhaps trying to figure out if we’ve met somewhere. We haven’t.”

“Actually, I wasn’t thinking that at all.”

The Suit turns his dark, slicing stare back to him, and then raises an eyebrow. It’s extremely hard to tell, but he might be surprised. “Really.”

“Yes. I was thinking that you don’t belong here, kinda like I don’t belong here but in a much more obvious way. And then I was wondering why someone of your status would submit himself to this if you didn’t have to.”

The Suit’s eyes run over him again, but this time don’t draw blood. “You look like you fit in here just fine.”

“Appearances are deceptive almost 100% of the time. It’s a basic survival tactic.” He waves the insight away and The Suit leans in a little, brows furrowing slightly. “Trust me, on the inside I’m just as out of place as your suit.”

The Suit watches him with far more care now, as if he might be dangerous. It seems like a very unusual reaction. He decides to use the assets his current face offers him and smiles while holding out his hand.

“I’m Spencer. Both inside and out.”

The Suit spends a certain amount of time considering both the name and the hand. He waits and doesn’t give up on the smile. In the mirror this morning he saw warm eyes, a square jaw, enough hair to make him seem either hapless or genuinely disinterested in his appearance – both of which tends to win people over – and a sort of languid androgyny that appeals to both sexes. It’s a very specific look, but one bound to come off as disarming, if not attractive. So, he just lets it work its magic.

The Suit grasps his hand firmly. “I’m Aaron.”

He smiles more brightly. “Hi, Aaron.” 

Aaron allows the smallest of smiles to curl one side of his mouth, then pulls his hand away to wrap around his mug once more. “Why do you think I’m ‘submitting myself’ to this place?”

“Easy,” Spencer tisks, starting to have a little fun now that he’s been given permission. “There was an open seat in front of you, but you let me have it, so you aren’t waiting for someone. Your suit probably costs more than the monthly rent on this dive, so this isn’t the sort of place you’d hang out in, and even if you were slumming it, people don’t often do that during daylight or look so miserable while doing so.”

Aaron’s eyebrow pops up but he keeps silent.

“Additionally, if you were a coffee snob and came here strictly for the product on offer, you wouldn’t choose the drip coffee that they rarely serve and let sit on the round until it burns the bottom of the pot. Anyone who comes here often enough knows that. And you’re not drinking it anyway, just using it as an excuse to sit and do something with your hands.” He has to stop and take a breath. He’s gotten carried away with his guessing game and is gesturing wildly with his long fingers. He realizes that he must look like a lunatic and tries to rein it in a little. “So, in conclusion, you’re not here because you like it, or for someone, or the coffee, which means that _why you are here_ is because you have to be. I just haven’t figured out why ‘you have to be’ yet.”

Aaron stares without showing much of anything. Then his eyebrows both pop up together and settle as he rolls his suit jacket across his shoulders.

“It should be simple to put that part together,” he says. “Take a moment. Tell me what you see.”

Now, Spencer’s eyebrows rise. He hadn’t planned on this; most people get offended when you peer too closely without an invitation. This guy’s got a little edge to him that’s unexpectedly fun. He leans forward on the table and gives Aaron what he hopes is an intimidating stare.

“Hmmm. Well, the suit’s too nice for government work, so that cuts your employment possibilities in D.C. in half.”

Aaron just stares back. Poker face. Okay then…

“But your appearance is fastidious. Details matter to you, but not in a surface way. You don’t fuss over them in order to impress others. Your hair is greying at the temples – if appearances mattered, you’d dye your hair.”

Still nothing from Aaron. Not even a twitch.

“You’re a serious person. The lines around your eyes aren’t laugh lines. And you have great focus. I’ve made two ageist comments so far that you’ve refused to react to.”

Aaron’s gaze blinks away for a moment and his mouth curls, but when he looks back he settles himself again. “Go on. I haven’t heard a conclusion yet.”

“You’ve got a faded tan, and not a fake one. There are lighter areas around your eyes where you’ve worn sunglasses. You spend a certain amount of time outdoors regularly. Probably frowning.” Spencer smirks. Aaron keeps staring. “Your suit’s trim enough to show that you’re fit. A runner’s physique. Maybe you do it for fun, but I’m guessing not. I don’t think there’s a lot you do for fun. Even having coffee.”

“Come on,” Aaron rumbles quietly. “Commit to something. You won’t draw the answer out of me by randomly poking. Observe, assess, evaluate, conclude.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Spencer raises a finger and shakes it at him, winking like he’s nailed him. “I think you just gave yourself away.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. You’re a lawyer. It’s a serious, detail-oriented career requiring logic, focus, judgment, and a certain level of healthy suspicion. It’s probably criminal law, given how cagey you’re being with me. And it definitely accounts for the suit. But not the tan…”

“Maybe I own a Mediterranean island.”

“No way. Too much fun for you.”

Aaron smirks, and there’s something about the way he does it that Spencer can’t pin down. “Well, that’s a good guess, but it’s just a guess. You made a lot of assumptions along the way that had no observational basis. Assumptions are always dangerous.”

“I agree. About the assumptions bit.” He waves his fingers around like the assumptions are flies pestering them. Aaron’s eyes follow the invisible flies curiously. Then Spencer leans forward, showing his hand and his enjoyment too much. It’s been too long since he’s had a conversation with someone that he didn’t know the end to from the start. “So, how right was I?” 

Something beeps softly from Aaron’s jacket and he scowls as he retrieves his phone, reads it, and quickly taps out a short response. When he pockets it again, his jacket shifts and Spencer sees the blunt end of a gun nestled underneath and tight to his side. He sits back, suddenly feeling exposed and wishing he were shivering on the bench outside with his coffee instead. He hears a sigh and looks up to find Aaron glancing at him knowingly.

“I _am_ a lawyer,” he rumbles. “But that’s not all I am.”

“So I see,” Spencer breathes. He wonders how quickly he can manufacture an excuse to get up and leave.

“I apologize.” 

Spencer meets Aaron’s eyes again, confused. 

“I’ve startled you.”

Aaron seems old once more, lines pulling at the corners of his eyes and the edges of his mouth when he speaks. Spencer’s seen guns before – he even has one himself, tucked away in a safe at the back of his closet gathering dust. His business demands them, but he’s never been comfortable with their silent threat of violence.

“It’s, uhh…”

“It’s legal,” Aaron finishes, and then capitulates to the moment. “I’m law enforcement.”

Oh _great._ He’s managed to sit down and strike up a conversation with a cop. Him: the guy whose whole existence is supposed to be a giant secret from everyone.

“Well… that explains the tan and the physical fitness I couldn’t place before…” He has no idea why he says it, but it makes Aaron chuckle, and that sound breaks the cold mesmerism of the gun under his coat. Spencer cautiously leans forward again, powered by a lifelong curiosity he’s never been able to control. He squints at Aaron’s face, watches it as the amusement fades and the serious mask overtakes it again. But his eyes never flick away from the stranger’s across the table. “City cops don’t become lawyers first,” Spencer muses after a moment. “I was wrong about you not working for the government.”

“Department of Justice,” Aaron nods without conceding anything more. But it’s enough. If Spencer wants to avoid trouble, he needs to leave. Now. But instead he does something unthinkable.

“Me too. Government, I mean. Not DoJ,” he admits quietly making Aaron’s eyebrows pop again as his eyes sharpen to slicing glances once more.

“Should you be telling me that?”

“No.”

Aaron nods and looks away, as if Spencer were just another stranger. Nothing interesting. “Okay,” he murmurs.

A weird silence falls between them, and Spencer realizes he could get up and leave now without consequences. He could escape this danger and Aaron will forget him – that’s the consideration his sudden silent disinterest is declaring loudly, as if it is a blinking sign overhead. But Spencer doesn’t move. That very consideration has transfixed him. Why would this stranger do this for him? Why would he look away when everything Spencer’s seen of him so far indicates he has a curiosity as keen as Spencer’s own? A mystery is _a mystery_ \- compelling by its very nature. He himself has never been able to turn away from one. 

And, he realizes with shocking clarity, he doesn’t want this stranger to forget him.

After a length of time, possibly measured for its politeness, Aaron turns back to discover Spencer still sitting, still staring. This sight produces the first genuine smile Spencer has seen from this man. It reaches his eyes and gentles the lines around them that make him look older than he is. The gaze isn’t slicing anymore, though it’s no less observant. And the edge is back, in the curl of his mouth and the slightest slouch that he suddenly adopts. Perhaps Spencer was wrong about Aaron’s lack of fun as well. Maybe it’s just as hidden as the rest of him.

“Hmmm,” Aaron rumbles eventually, crossing his arms on the worn table top and drumming the fingers of his left hand once. “Well, then. May I try now?”

Spencer blinks, not understanding at first, and then… oh. Guessing him. No, that’s a terrible idea for so many reasons-

He nods his permission, and Aaron’s smile gets a fraction wider.

_Jesus. What the fuck is this about? Have I somehow developed a necessary connection with a complete stranger in the past ten minutes? I guess this means I can’t honestly assert that I’m not lonely anymore, because… WOW, this is lonely lunatic behavior…_

Isolation makes you paranoid. Loneliness makes you stupid. Somehow, he’s convinced himself to indulge these conflicting motivations simultaneously. Perhaps he just wants to matter to someone, if only temporarily. Maybe he just wants to leave a mark _somewhere…_

Aaron stares a moment longer as the café bustles around them, ignoring their enticement in favor of Instagrammed shots of perfect latte peaks, and a lot of swiping left, and the ever-growing distance of people rammed together cheek-by-jowl while riveted to their phones.

“You’ve already admitted that you work in government. The fact that you cannot be more specific, and that you made a point of distinguishing yourself from the DoJ indicates that it’s probably a position in a more secure branch of our sprawling infrastructure,” Aaron begins. Spencer focuses on appearing neutral, which no doubt gives a lot away. “And those agencies tend to have an attitude about rubbing shoulders with rank-and-file legal beagles. Your need to set yourself apart from the Department of Justice is an institutionalized tell.”

Spencer cracks a small smile. His director would roll his eyes at his lack of professionalism. _This_ was why Spencer didn’t work with other people. Well, one of the reasons anyway…

“You were shocked by the gun though…”

“Not shocked,” Spencer admits quietly. “I just don’t like them.”

“Neither do I,” Aaron says grimly before continuing. “You’re young, fit, though not really built for physical confrontation – you probably don’t make it into the field much…”

Spencer sighs and looks away; Aaron has fallen into profiling his body, which is meaningless. In less than three days he could be an Eastern European weightlifter. Or an anorexic teenager. Perhaps it was a ridiculous fantasy to believe _this_ stranger would react any differently than the thousands of others who came before him. Everyone always falls for the mask…

Aaron pauses and the silence draws Spencer’s gaze back to him. Aaron’s brows are furrowed, like he’s struggling to understand what he’s reading.

“You don’t care about the way you look,” Aaron says quietly, eyebrows lowering further as he concentrates. “It’s unimportant to you. Completely unimportant. That’s… unusual in one so young…”

“I told you: appearances are deceptive all too often,” Spencer mumbles back, still disappointed.

“But the way you paid attention to my appearance, the way you consciously used ageist comments to provoke me,” Aaron continues. “You _notice_ the way people look. You pay great attention to those details – you seek to use them. But they mean nothing to you personally.”

Aaron looks utterly confused, and then, fascinated. 

“Maybe I’m a spy looking for a way to coax out information,” Spencer tosses away the suggestion. “Or perhaps I’m just a sociopath.”

“Unlikely,” Aaron snorts, and Spencer feels mildly offended. “The NSA only hires sociopaths for field ops.”

It’s a throwaway line but it freezes Spencer in his chair. Shit. _Holy shit, how does he…_

“How did you know?” he breathes before he can stop himself. Aaron blinks and then, strangely, color rises to his cheeks under his fading tan.

“The agency was a guess, but an educated one, which you have subsequently confirmed.” Aaron gestures to him with a hand and it’s Spencer’s turn to blush. “This also proves my theory that you aren’t a field agent – they don’t trip up that easily. In addition, I can see the spine of the book in your bag.” Spencer’s head whips down to the messenger bag hanging over the back of his chair. “Euclidean algorithms in cryptography is heavy reading if it isn’t a specialty. You’re young, intelligent, observant, detail-oriented, a little socially unfocused, in a job you’re supposed to keep under wraps, with a cryptography book in your bag. That has all the earmarks of a covert agency hire. You’re one of those genius analysts that the NSA likes to pluck from grad schools and dump in windowless basements with a minimum of training to work on coding they’ll never implement _just_ so no one else can do the same thing for another department. It’s a tremendous waste of resources when you consider it. But typically American: we’re always stockpiling things of value rather than using them.”

Aaron falls silent and watches him closely. Spencer wonders if _Aaron_ knew the outcome of this conversation before Spencer sat down.

“I could confirm your supposition,” he mumbles resentfully. “But then I’d have to kill you.”

Aaron laughs, suddenly and broadly. It’s quite alarming considering the quiet murmuring that has been their entire, brief association. It takes a moment, but then Spencer is laughing too, caught up in the freedom of letting one secret fall away.

“Don’t take it too badly. This is what I do,” Aaron chuckles. “For what it’s worth, you do a pretty solid cold read for someone who hasn’t been trained. Quantico recruits could learn a thing or two about observing from you. Even if you’re no good at keeping secrets.”

Spencer grins at both the unexpected compliment as well as the first error Aaron has made. Spencer’s great with secrets. It’s just that some secrets are more important than others.

“Well, I’m not sure how good my read of you was because I still don’t know why you’re here,” Spencer mumbles, and then Aaron’s amusement fades as he gives Spencer a rebuffed look before he ties down his professional neutrality once more. “In this café,” Spencer clarifies while thinking, _interesting…_

“Work,” Aaron grumbles at the same time as his phone beeps again. He pulls it out, sends another quick response back, and then looks up, grey-faced and serious all over again. “I can’t discuss it.”

“I understand.”

Aaron looks at him with something akin to apology before he clears his throat and pushes away his untouched coffee. “And unfortunately, that means I often leave abruptly, as I must do now. Forgive my rudeness.”

“There’s nothing to forgive.” Spencer watches him rise to his feet and straighten the lines of his suit. There’s a twinge of _something_ in his gut that this is over already. He’d have liked to spend another hour jousting with Aaron. But his connections are always brief, and this one is no different. He gives Aaron a wave and reaches back to his bag to pull out his book, expecting nothing more. But the silhouette of Aaron’s suit halts beside him, forcing him to look up again through his floppy, hipster hair.

“It was an unexpected pleasure to meet you, Spencer.” Aaron offers one of his broad, rough hands and a small, crinkly smile. It’s real though. It reaches up and warms his stare. Spencer’s gut makes another miniscule, sad twist, and he clasps Aaron’s hand firmly, in a way that men do in casual, accepted camaraderie. Then Aaron does something strange and claps their joined hands with his free one, holding them securely for a warm second. 

“I regret that we don’t have more time.”

“Me too,” Spencer mumbles before he can stop himself. It’s absolutely true but he’s confused about why he said it in the first place. Then Aaron lets go and walks away and it’s over.

The café sounds surround him and replace the silent void that’s erupted inside his head as he stares at his abandoned hand on the table top. It’s a young hand. Thin and long. Expressive. But also, large, unmistakably male. 

_Was that flirting?_ his mind suddenly stutters. _Am I that lonely?_

Sometimes he gets lost in who he is; he can’t escape that his looks are constantly changing, but sometimes he _forgets_ what he looks like. He confuses himself, occasionally forgetting how to sit as a woman in a skirt or misunderstanding why someone gives up their seat for him when he’s an old man on a bus. He’s never wanted another man – he’s never even tried it. He’s been hit on by plenty – both as a woman and a man – but he’s never been tempted. Inside he’s always been _him_ , regardless of his outsides, and he’s only ever wanted women. Is there some part of this _skin_ that expects flirtation? Could that be transferred to him, even temporarily? He shakes his head gently. No, it wasn’t flirting. He’s made enough connections to know; sometimes the thrill of a new person can be confusing. It _is_ a form of attraction, after all. Even friendship. But not all attraction is physical. And he is a person who is habitually on his own: his connections are always, necessarily conflagrated by time limitations. Aaron didn’t read as the type anyway – he seemed straight as the day is long. Probably had a perfect wife and kids in a suburb somewhere. Spencer was just disappointed at losing yet another person.

He blinks and realizes that it’s been some time since he’s been upset by that.

But it wasn’t flirting, and the definitive proof of that is that Aaron isn’t still standing here, and he made no attempt to prolong their association beyond an awkward handshake.

He spends another hour at the café trying to read, to lose himself, but gives up when he recognizes that he’s reread the same chapter three times without retaining a thing. He sighs and starts the long walk home in the November greyness. When he makes it to his house, he boots up his laptop and opens the video recorder program. He doesn’t always vlog – usually only when something significant has happened, and today all he’s really done is waste time. But he sits facing the camera and hits record.

“This is me today.” This is how he usually begins with a new face. He looks down at his long, strange hands for a moment. “It wasn’t a substantive day, but I met someone. His name is Aaron. It was brief but…” He rubs his fingers together. “Interesting. He said he wished we had ‘more time’.”

Spencer laughs, but he knows if he ever replays this video the laughter won’t make it to his eyes.

“That’s it, I guess.”

He shrugs and, after a moment, turns the recorder off.


	3. Day 4,033

He has no idea why he goes back.

The café is less congested today but that’s probably because of the rain. He’s parked at a corner table that offers him a good view of the rest of the seats, and he’s half hiding behind his laptop, trying to get some work done but not fooling himself for one moment. Each time the bell over the door rings, his eyes are up from his screen and scanning the crowd for new faces. He grumbles to himself every time, the way he hopes and then tells himself not to, only to fall for it again when the door opens.

“Stupid,” he mutters. “You’re a stupid weirdo…”

He hammers away at his keyboard more forcefully. He should be at home. It’s too much of a risk to work here. And he’s _not_ going to meet anyone.

“May I sit here?”

He looks up and she’s stunning. Caramel skin, long black hair flowing over her shoulders and around her book bag slung across her. Her eyes are dark and magnetic, her smile just as alluring. She’s been milling around the counter for a few minutes – he noticed – probably working up the nerve to walk over here. It would be _easy_ and probably enjoyable. He hates her instantly.

“I’m waiting for someone,” he tosses out while sending his eyes back to his screen. He doesn’t care to see if she’s disappointed or not.

“Oh,” she says softly, and then he assumes that she wanders away. He doesn’t look up to check.

Four more people try to proposition his empty seat over the next forty minutes. His refusals get shorter and snappier. When a tall redhead doesn’t take the hint right away, he hooks his foot under the empty chair and draws it against the table noisily to emphasize his point to her.

“Hey, it’s a public place, man, not your living room,” she hisses, tossing her curls from one shoulder to the other. “If you wanna be alone, go back to your momma’s basement.”

He looks up as she walks away, and then he vindictively deactivates the café’s wi-fi with a keystroke and a petty swell of victory.

“Now, everyone can go home, can’t they?” he mumbles as devices begin beeping mournfully, and a moment later a general hue and cry sounds from the café’s clientele. 

“The signal dropped…”

“Fuck. No, wait… ah, shit. I was 98% complete!”

“Goddamn you, Verizon.”

“No, it’s me too…”

“Hey! Dude! The wi-fi’s down… Well, why did I just pay eight bucks for a coffee to sit in an internet black hole?”

“Have you tried turning it off and on again?”

It’s amusing for a time, and it does manage to clear out the café a little, but the satisfaction wears off quickly and he finds himself shocked and ashamed of how foul his mood has become. He reconnects the wi-fi network sheepishly as he watches the harried baristas behind the counter withstand the entitled rage of customers who’ve come to expect something for nothing. He’s never been this sort of guy. What’s gotten into him today? He’s not rude to those who show him the courtesy of being interested. He doesn’t flex what little power he has to punish people. He’s not a guy who allows himself to have expectations that can be squashed.

He collects his things and packs up for home. He’s clearly no good at being a human today so it’s best to remove himself before he ruins everyone else’s Thursday as well. He feels like a small, scaly _thing_ as he shuffles past the counter where customers are still railing about the blip in their day, and slips silently out into the rain.

 _You’re a stupid weirdo AND a shitheel. Nice work. Mom would be so proud…_ His mother’s weary face blooms in his mind and it’s the first time he’s thought about her in years. He sighs and feels guilty, and angry, and then worthless in quick succession.

“Spencer?”

The rumble still sounds inviting even though it’s half erased by the persistent downpour. The silhouette coalesces as he gets closer, sheltered by a sturdy umbrella. 

_No way…_

When he’s close enough to see details, Aaron’s eyebrows rise as he peers at Spencer, surprised. Spencer shrinks under his own ratty umbrella with a strange mix of delight and fear that Aaron might know that he’s just spent the afternoon being a selfish weirdo.

Aaron looks him up and down again, just as he did the day before, like they’ve just met. “Don’t you have an office to go to?” 

A slightly embarrassing giggle ripples out of Spencer that makes him want to cringe. _Oh, Aaron, I’m sorry, but I seem to have developed a bit of a mancrush. I’m usually far more capable and disinterested than this._ He hopes it’ll pass soon.

“I’m what’s known as a ‘remote asset’, which always sorta makes me feel like stolen artwork or conflict diamonds squirreled away in a Swiss bank vault rather than just a guy who works from home.”

Aaron chuckles, his shoulders vibrating under his tailored rain coat. “I think you should use the bank vault analogy as your job description from now on. It’s far more exotic.”

Spencer can’t help grinning and his stomach makes a dramatic dip as if he’s on the downslope of a carnival ride. _Stupid stomach, gimme a break…_ “And you?” He tries to sound normal, neutral. Not like maybe Aaron came out in the rain to look for someone he barely knows as well. “Don’t you have cases to break, leads to hunt down, suspects to scowl at? I mean, it’s three-thirty on a Thursday…”

Aaron shuffles uncomfortably for a second. “We closed a case yesterday, so I gave everyone today off as a reward.”

“So, you’re the boss, huh?”

“I’m middle management,” he shrugs. “But a win’s a win, so I made the call.” Aaron pauses and looks at Spencer more closely through the rain. “Did you think I was stalking you?”

Spencer blushes and hopes it can’t be seen through the downpour. “You still don’t fit in here. That hasn’t changed since yesterday. Which begs the question: why are you back?”

Aaron sighs and it makes a soft, foggy cloud under his umbrella before it dissipates. “This is… awkward.” 

_Holy shit. I was wrong. He WAS flirting… Just be cool. Let him down easy… you’re not interested…_

_You’re not, right?_

“I’m a workaholic,” Aaron starts. “I’m not good at meeting new people.”

“Uh…” Spencer feels himself freeze in place under his umbrella, delight mixing with a very real sense of impending doom.

“I enjoyed our conversation yesterday…”

“Uh… hey, umm, Aaron?”

“Yes?” Aaron stops contemplating his shoes and gives Spencer his undivided attention, which does nothing to dispel either the delight or the doom.

“Are you… are you gay?” The word floats out into the rain between them and they end up blinking as if trying to spell it out on the air with their eyes.

“Do you think I’m coming onto you?” Aaron asks quietly after a moment. 

Spencer just shrugs as his dread amps up another notch. If Aaron tells him it’s just physical attraction, then the joy of this connection ends as abruptly as it began. No one admits to wanting someone and then settles for friendship instead. That only happens on tv. Spencer’s shoulders slouch as he prepares to hear that, once again, only his outsides matter.

“I’m a widower and a single parent,” Aaron explains quietly. “My job takes up most of my time and it’s rare for me to engage with a stranger who isn’t criminally unstable.”

Spencer’s eyebrows hitch upwards as he thinks, _Wow. I am just terrible at being a human being today…_

“As I said before, I enjoyed our brief meeting yesterday and found you to be interesting. I… don’t know what I expected by coming back here. I just thought… you might be a regular, and that it might be nice to continue a conversation with someone I probably won’t end up shooting or arresting.” He sighs again heavily. “I’m sorry if I offended you or gave the wrong impression. Like I said, I’m not very good at this.”

“Oh. Uh…” Spencer rolls on his feet nervously, once again giddy at the idea that Aaron likes him, and that it isn’t about how he looks or some desperate need to fuck away mutual loneliness. And now there’s an added layer of excitement at the discovery that under Aaron’s capable professionalism is doubt and a diffident shyness Spencer is intimately familiar with. 

“That’s alright. I’m not good at meeting people either.” It’s only half a lie: he’s good at meeting and bedding new people, but he has no experience with letting them in.

“Sorry I assumed you were gay,” he adds.

Aaron blinks. “Why would you apologize for that? Given the evidence at hand, it was a reasonable guess. And I’m certainly not offended by it. But,” he leans in a little closer. “I’m probably too old for you, if that were the case.”

Spencer watches as Aaron’s carefully neutral expression melts into a cheeky smirk. Spencer rolls his eyes at him before he can stop himself. He knows this face seems young, but just how old did the guy _think_ he was?

“I’m twenty-nine,” he grumbles.

“Good for you,” Aaron says blithely and then grins through the rain. “So. Now that the sexual confusion has been cleared up, and since you evidently have nothing better to do this afternoon than stand in the street and have awkward conversations with strange men you have no attraction towards, may I buy you a coffee, Spencer? Perhaps some place less… diluvian…”

Aaron bows slightly and gestures towards the café. Spencer barks out a sudden laugh, crush now firmly re-established.

“Not in there,” he says, stepping as close as their umbrellas will allow. 

“Why not? I actually haven’t had one of their coffees.”

“I messed up their wi-fi earlier,” Spencer shrugs and walks past, leading the way. “I’m sure the cloud of hipster irritation has yet to dissipate.”

“You did it on purpose?” Aaron falls into step just behind him.

“Yeah. People were pissing me off. I fixed it though – I’m not a total douchebag. I just needed some private server access and some breathing space.”

Aaron laughed. “Oh, I have a tech analyst who’d _love_ to meet you…”

“I don’t think a Magic Mountain ride to nerdvana between two coding dudes would be much fun for you.” Spencer snaps his fingers and turns to give Aaron a cheeky smirk of his own. “Oh, that’s right, I forgot: you’re not into fun.” Aaron gives him an odd expression that looks stuck halfway between amusement and tried patience.

“Dude. Singular,” he says. “My tech analyst is a woman, though I’m sure she wouldn’t object to a ride to ‘nerdvana’ so long as you behaved like a gentleman.”

“Oh.” Spencer grins as they turn the corner and try to avoid being splashed by a speeding garbage truck. “I love it when my gender expectations get subverted…”

“What an odd thing to say,” Aaron mumbles.

Spencer turns to face him, walking backwards, which is dangerous since he’s currently acting like an excited puppy. “Are you trying to set me up?”

Aaron’s look of gentle, tried patience returns. Maybe Spencer was boring him already. Maybe he was being too obviously weird. He should tone it down, let it out in moderation instead. He’s just _excited_ is all…

“I think Garcia might be too much for you.” A smile curls one corner of Aaron’s mouth. “Turn around before you fall into a puddle. I’m right behind you, I promise.”

“Okay,” Spencer turns back, inwardly telling himself to _be cool_ and try to be less bouncy. “There’s a place I know not far from here. We’ll be out of the rain soon.”

There’s a half minute of sloshy footfalls and zooming traffic and the rapid blip-blip-blip of rain bouncing off their umbrellas. Then Spencer’s brain comes back to life and hyperfocuses on something that snuck by him the first time.

“Wait a second… you said ‘probably’” He stops and turns to Aaron who pulls up short.

“Pardon?”

“You said you _probably_ wouldn’t end up shooting or arresting me.” Spencer cocks both an eyebrow as well as a damp hand on his hip. “ _Probably,_ huh?”

Aaron laughs so hard that he tips his umbrella and soaks one side of his expensive, wrinkle-less overcoat. Then he claps a hand on Spencer’s shoulder and pats it. “Well, let’s see how coffee goes, okay?” he rumbles warmly and pushes them forward once again.


	4. Thursday, November 16

This was a strange turn of events. He is sitting in a Thai restaurant, which appears to be run by Armenians, drinking a sickly concoction that professes to be ‘Vietnamese coffee’ with an apparently genius stranger twenty years younger than him that he literally picked up in the street forty minutes ago. Aaron calmly reassesses his earlier dismissal that he is having some sort of existential crisis this week. 

Spencer is unlike anyone he’s met before – completely unique. Aaron watches as he currently expounds about the geometric algorithms that make cryptography possible and how they conversely make language infinite and infinitely knowable. His hands are flying around in front of him, putting his untouched drink at considerable risk, and he’s flushed and sparking with engagement, even though Aaron doesn’t follow much of what he’s saying. He can’t believe the NSA hired this guy. He’s brilliant, sure, but he has zero filters and that makes him a considerable risk. Although, as Aaron follows his hands and feels himself smiling at their wild flapping, he realizes that Spencer hasn’t really given anything away. And that isolation can make you crave conversation in a way that can come off as unseemly. If he is being honest with himself, isn’t that why he went back to that shithole café today? To find this stranger and have a little more of this odd, gesticulating curiosity?

“Sorry,” Spencer breaks Aaron from his musing. He’s blinking and looks embarrassed. What has Aaron missed?

“Why are you apologizing?”

“Because I haven’t stopped talking since we sat down.”

“Well, that’s the point of coffee, isn’t it? Sitting and talking…”

“But you’re not talking,” Spencer sighs and looks away. “You’re being polite with me.”

“I’m not, and you don’t have enough insight into my personality to make that assumption,” Aaron mumbles. Spencer’s eyes snap back to him, staring critically. “You’re not really talking either,” he adds quietly. “Not about _you_ , anyway. Just about what you do, which isn’t the same thing.”

Spencer’s features freeze into the careful neutrality that Aaron saw the day before. It’s to be expected – they don’t really know each other, and both appear to have professional problems with full disclosure. But Aaron suspects it’s also something else. He thinks about Spencer’s question: was he gay? At the time, Aaron was too concerned with the possibility that Spencer might be offended by that to think about the other side of that coin. Perhaps Spencer was attracted _to him_ , and this carefulness now was an attempt to hide that in light of how Aaron had deflected the question. Spencer didn’t come across as homosexual, but admittedly, Aaron isn’t too familiar with the subtleties of that type of attraction. He _did_ come across as lonely, and Aaron understood volumes on that subject.

“Do you get out much, Spencer?” Aaron cringes at the mediocrity of the question. It feels like he’s letting them both down by asking, but figures that he’s got to begin a more meaningful dialog with something. Spencer just shrugs, the neutrality firmly fixed in place perhaps sensing he’s being prodded. “Working alone, from your home… sounds isolating.”

“Is that why you came back to the café today? Because you wanted to help some unfortunate guy be less isolated?” Spencer’s expression doesn’t change but an edge creeps into his tone. “Perhaps you should think about why you’re wearing a suit on your day off, and what that says about personal defensiveness.”

_Hmmm, impressive. Deflecting, but impressive._

“I didn’t mean to sound condescending,” Aaron sighs, sitting forward in his chair. “And you’re right about the suit. I told you – I’m not good at this. I came back to find you because… we seemed similar and sometimes I feel… a little too secluded in my life.”

Spencer blinks. “How?”

“An all-consuming job, a ruined marriage, friends who are also colleagues in the same, insular world as me… you know, the usual.”

Spencer nods but looks confused. “I understand that sentiment, though not the actual experience.”

“What don’t you understand about the experience?”

“All of it.”

Aaron feels one of his eyebrows arch. Spencer sighs and leans forward as well, dispelling his neutrality and making things less standoffish.

“My job is important, but not to me personally. I have no relationships to ruin, and no colleagues to speak of,” he explains.

“What about friends?”

Spencer leans back and affects an attitude of disinterest that Aaron isn’t buying at all. “Friends are optional, and I haven’t opted for any.”

“C’mon…” Aaron huffs disbelievingly.

“What?”

“ _No_ friends? Ever?”

Spencer looks away. “My life is complicated.”

“It would have to be in order to omit the option of friendship.”

Spencer turns back and fixes him with a hard look that seems worn and unjustified. “Rethinking the possibility that I’m a sociopath?”

“A little,” Aaron rumbles and then smirks when Spencer’s glare sharpens. “But I suppose I could settle for ‘resolute, self-sufficient loner’…”

“Oh, that’s so much better,” Spencer says dryly before allowing his glare to admit some warmth. “Less wanted poster-y.”

Aaron chuckles and it makes Spencer smirk and slouch slightly in his chair.

“Okay, well, I’ve never had many friends,” Spencer concedes. “Even as a kid. So, it’s not surprising that this has followed me into adulthood, I guess.”

“I guess.” Aaron nods. Should he admit to the same failing? It seems too personal and he barely knows this guy. He doesn’t want to come off as desperate, even though he feels that seeking Spencer out today might have already given that impression. It’s just weird that he feels he already has a lot in common with this stranger.

“It’s probably just evidence of interrupted adolescent imprinting,” Spencer waves it away like the insight is simultaneously obvious and unimportant.

“Spencer,” Aaron leans in and tries not to scowl. “Have you ever studied psychology? Forgive me for prying, but statements like that, and the cold read you did yesterday lead me to think that you have.”

Spencer blinks back at him, appearing stuck.

“If so, that’s interesting to me,” Aaron continues quietly and hopes that it seems friendly. “In my department, we all have psych degrees, so speaking that way is normal for us. But I have to remind myself that it’s _not normal_ for just about everyone else.” He chuckles nervously. “Another reason why I’m not good at meeting people…”

“You’re a profiler, aren’t you?” Spencer asks cautiously.

Aaron had hoped that it wouldn’t come to this, but clearly, his job is as obvious on him as everyone’s always said it is. “Yes,” he huffs. “I don’t tell people about what I do because it tends to narrow the conversation into two directions: morbid fascination or general discomfort.”

Spencer recovers himself and begins nodding knowingly. _Knowingly…_ Then he shakes the hair out of his eyes and clears his throat. “Math, chemistry, and engineering.”

“Pardon?”

“I have doctorates in math, chemistry, and engineering. I only have a bachelor’s degree in psychology, and it’s more like a personal interest for me. I’m really a novice at it.”

Aaron does a whole lot of blinking himself as he sits back in his chair with the restaurant buzzing around him. “Oh, umm, so… all of that. And you’re…”

“Twenty-nine. Yes.” Spencer reiterates as he watches Aaron closely. Then he leans forward over his lukewarm coffee, eyes focused with strange interest. “Do you find that intimidating?”

“Who in their right mind wouldn’t?” he says without considering it first. Then he looks up into Spencer’s odd stare. “But mostly, it’s just interesting to me. You are definitely the most interesting person I’ve met in a long time.”

Spencer’s face gets a little rosy while he watches, and then his eyes duck away to the forgotten laminated menu tucked behind the condiments at the table’s corner. Aaron smiles against his better judgment.

“And that interest raises a lot of questions,” Aaron continues. “But you don’t seem comfortable with personal questions…”

“I’m just not used to the attention that comes with them. That’s all. I’m not good at being myself with people.”

“And yet you hang out in public places and chat up random strangers.” Aaron feels himself smirk. Spencer notices and smirks back.

“Well, that happened without me really thinking about it.”

“Hmmm. So, no girlfriend who finds you endlessly fascinating to practice on? Or boyfriend – I’m not judging.”

He doesn’t know why he’s bringing this up again, because if Spencer has privacy issues, this topic certainly won’t help. And it’s none of his business. He just can’t seem to get away from why Spencer would ask him if he was gay or not. He doesn’t know why he’s stuck on this one thing. Spencer looks at him as if he’s trying to figure out a riddle under Aaron’s question. But he’s not looking defensive or offended.

“I told you, I don’t have relationships.” Spencer sighs deeply. “I have break-ups. I’m a semi-pro at it, actually. That arrested adolescent imprinting thing…” He waves his fingers around airily. 

“Oh, I doubt that,” Aaron snorts softly. “Emotional immaturity and self-awareness of said immaturity don’t tend to mutually co-exist in the mind.” He gives Spencer a serious look. “Perhaps you break-up all the time because you’re just an ass.”

He waits. It takes a long moment, but Spencer smiles back, his cheeks coloring slightly. “Oh, I’m sure I am,” he says dryly. “But no more so than a guy who can’t stop profiling long enough to have a cup of coffee.” Spencer slides the menu across the table to him. “Order something. By the time the food arrives, I want you to stop guessing about me and start _asking._ Deal?”

“You sure you can handle that?” Aaron asks as he gets flummoxed by a menu that features both ping gai and dolmas as specialties. He’s probably going to get food poisoning and die from his interest in Spencer. That will make for an amusing epitaph. 

“I’ll tell you to mind your own business if I have to.” Aaron looks up and Spencer shrugs at him. “Like a normal person.”

“Don’t you think you’re normal?” Aaron doesn’t think he’s normal at all – and that’s enticing – but Spencer’s opinion on the matter is the one that counts.

“Has anyone ever told you that your conversational style skews towards ‘penetrating interrogation’?” Spencer jabs back gamely.

Aaron barks out a laugh that surprises them both. “Well, my ex-wife would have agreed with you on that. But, truthfully, I don’t talk much at all. This is the longest conversation I’ve had in months.”

“Oh.” Spencer’s smirk falters a little. One of his hands begins worrying the cracked laminate of the table top. The sudden nervousness doesn’t make a lot of sense, so, as often happens with Aaron’s mind, he unpacks the expression.

“You really thought I was gay, didn’t you?”

“No, not really.”

Aaron pauses. “Are _you_ gay?”

Spencer’s eyes meet his. “No, I’m not.” Then they flit away and his nervous twitching increases a little. Something tightens in Aaron’s gut and he suddenly thinks he might understand this. He takes a minute to think about how to put it into words.

“You know,” he begins softly, his voice drawing Spencer’s eyes back to him. “Meeting someone new, having a connection where there wasn’t one before, is exciting. That’s normal. It _is_ a form of attraction in a way. There’s no harm in it.”

Spencer leans back into his chair and sighs, but doesn’t say a thing to that. It’s as if he’s constantly wavering between inviting Aaron in and pushing him out again.

“Listen,” he folds his arms across the confusing menu and leans into the table. “You’re interesting and I want to get to know you. And I’m nervous, in a ridiculously juvenile way that I find embarrassing, because I want you to like me as well. It’s like high school all over again.”

Spencer snorts in amusement.

“We’re both introverted types, I think. So, this,” Aaron gestures between them. “Is bound to make us feel a little strange. But I’m willing to shine it on in order to get to know you better.”

He can say more on the matter, but waits to see how Spencer will take what he’s already given. Every word of it is true, but that doesn’t make him any more comfortable admitting it. Eventually, Spencer shuffles in his seat and gives Aaron a quizzical look.

“Do you suppose this is how normal people do it? Meeting other people, I mean…”

One side of Aaron’s mouth lifts in a smile. “I have no idea. I’ve never been normal a day in my life.”

“Me neither,” he says back quietly, accepting the invitation. And then he nods at the menu. “You know what you want?”

Aaron stares down at his choices and huffs. “This clash of ethnicity has me deeply confused.”

“Well, just get out in front of it. Choose something odd and be done with it. I’ve eaten here a lot and I’m sure that they wouldn’t still be in business if their cooking were lethal.” When Aaron looks back up, Spencer is waving over their waiter with a smug expression. After food is ordered, they fall silent again, eyes flicking to each other and away, as if not sure how to move forward within the rules they’ve just established.

“You know,” Spencer clears his throat. “I wasn’t reacting to your statement about your wife. Well… I guess I was, but not the way you think.”

Aaron feels himself arch an eyebrow.

“You said “ex-wife”, but earlier you told me you were a widower…”

Oh. Well, that made sense.

“Yes, I am. We divorced before she died. Haley was adamant about the “ex” part. I was less so.”

“I’m sorry,” Spencer says quietly. “On both counts.”

“So am I. She was a wonderful person. A great mother.” He sighs. “She deserved better than what she got.”

“Better than what?”

“A distant husband. An early end.”

“Did you…” Spencer stops and bites his lip. He shakes his head in a quiet way that seems to say ‘fuck it’. “Did you still love her?”

“Yes,” Aaron huffs in surprise, both at the straight-up balls of the question and his lack of hesitation in answering it. “But not as much as I should have.”

A crease forms between Spencer’s eyebrows. “I don’t understand that.”

He sighs heavily. “Haley was my first love – my high school sweetheart.” He waits for Spencer to react, but he does nothing, just waiting for more instead. “I loved her desperately when I was young, as only the young can. But we both grew up. I never stopped loving her, but I think I _fell out of love_ with her. We wanted different things. She hated my job and my commitment to it. That was sort of like… hating a part of me.” Aaron shakes his head and the memory of Haley’s anger and disappointment away. “But we had Jack by then, so we tried to make it work.”

“Jack is your son?”

“Yes,” Aaron feels himself smile in a way he rarely does. “He’s eleven. Just on the cusp of becoming an aggravating teenager, I’m sure. But right now, he’s still my buddy.”

Spencer smiles distantly, like someone looking on a priceless work of art but having no understanding of its underlying value.

“Maybe I can’t stop loving Haley because of him,” Aaron sighs. He can’t believe he’s admitting any of this to a complete stranger.

“Or maybe love is just love,” Spencer says quietly, lifting a shoulder and then dropping it. “And it’s never a waste of time, even if you grow out of it.”

Aaron focuses on him. There’s a sad wistfulness to his expression suddenly as he sits and stares back at Aaron. He seems weary in a way that’s characteristic of someone much older. Aaron takes in the long lines of him, the sharp features, the fashionable disinterest of his appearance, and the compelling gaze; there’s no doubt that he’s handsome. Even with the awkwardness and forced isolation, Aaron thinks it’s unlikely that this guy has always been alone, and his statement just now hammers that belief home.

“Sounds like you know something about that,” Aaron says after another thoughtful moment. Spencer hasn’t looked away once. “I thought you were the king of break-ups.”

“Maybe that’s _why_ I’m the king of break-ups,” Spencer counters.

That didn’t seem likely. The sadness was still there, lining his face, in the air around his floppy, too-long tangles and his mismatched suit and vest. The behavior he was describing was _a reaction_ to something in the past, but what Aaron currently saw was an experience that was ongoing. Even Aaron understood that sadness faded with time, it mutated and changed; his grief over Haley’s loss was much different now than it was in the beginning. Spencer’s sadness seemed to be the key to his loneliness, but he held it closely to him, unwilling to share it. Aaron felt himself becoming more interested, wanting to pull apart the mystery sitting across from him.

“How long has it been since she died?” Spencer’s voice brings him back.

“Six years.” Had it been that long? It felt closer than that.

“Has there been anyone since?”

Aaron leans back, feeling heat creep up his face. “Not really. Nothing serious, anyway. The job is still the job, and I’ve put most of my remaining energy into Jack. He needs me.”

“And you need to be needed.”

Aaron’s gaze snaps up and sees Spencer still slouching in his chair casually, but his eyes are penetrating, trying to figure Aaron out. Aaron doubts that Spencer is as much of a psychology novice as he claims to be – the insight is too sharp. Then Spencer lets his gaze drift away, skimming over the bustling patrons around them instead.

“I don’t know if I could go that long without… someone,” he huffs casually. 

Aaron bristles internally at what that implies. Yes, the physical burden is a bitch at times, and perhaps that’s part of why he’s here, too overinvested in coffee with a fascinating stranger. But he’s never found it easy to give himself away casually, and maybe that’s a generational divide. Maybe that’s why Spencer is a self-professed break-up master while Aaron remains frustrated and alone.

“I… don’t see the allure of disposability. It all seems a little pointless unless it means something,” he murmurs and Spencer’s gaze veers back to him for a hard instant before he shrugs the sentiment away.

“To each their own, I guess.”

Aaron sags as if all of his strings have been cut at once. Is he disappointing or just out of fashion? And why does Spencer’s opinion on this count for anything? So, Spencer can fuck around. Good for him. But who placed such a premium on _fucking_ anyway? And, something whispers in the back of Aaron’s head, Spencer’s casual attitude hasn’t made him less lonely. It’s done nothing to lift the weariness from him, has it?

“I don’t see anyone as disposable,” Spencer murmurs suddenly, eyes roaming the restaurant. “Except perhaps me.”

Aaron watches him as his irritation melts away. Spencer spends another moment observing the diners around them, and then flicks his gaze back to Aaron before ducking his head so that his hair falls into his eyes. Behind his tangles and averted looks, his mouth pulls downward into a frown.

“I don’t understand that,” Aaron mumbles, and he really doesn’t. Nor does he understand how they got this far into such a thorny topic.

Spencer shakes his hair from his face and attempts to give Aaron a lop-sided smirk to hide the frown. “I didn’t really expect you to. I just didn’t want you to think I was a callous shit.”

“Does that matter?” Aaron asks, stunned.

Spencer just shrugs and sits straighter when he catches their waiter coming to their table with food. It effectively ends the discussion that, perhaps, they never should’ve begun in the first place. Aaron is both relieved and dissatisfied as he spoons his exotic soup around, and decides to let the matter drop. They eat for a few minutes, partially pretending that the other isn’t there. The silence stretches out in a way that it only can between people who don’t have a foundation of knowledge about each other to make it comfortable. Aaron struggles to find another open-ended topic as he burns his mouth on his soup. He really isn’t good at this, not unless the person across from him is a deranged murderer.

“So, I think it’s your turn,” he begins. Spencer looks up from his glass noodles, confused. “Tell me something about you, Spencer. It’s only fair now that you know about my divorce, my son, and my non-existent love life,” he adds clumsily and stuffs a spoonful of scalding broth into his mouth to stall his social constipation. Spencer blinks for about ten seconds straight and then clears his throat.

“Ummm, nothing to tell really. I’m from Vegas – the suburbs, not the strip. Dad’s dead, Mom’s in a home. I don’t have any siblings or extended family. I made it through college before I was sixteen. Got the hell outta Nevada and was doing research at CalTech when the NSA came calling. It took them a while but they convinced me to work for them. Something happened along the way that made their offer more appealing… Anyway, that was nine years ago. I’ve been here ever since.”

He shrugs and goes back to his noodles like that’s not a whole lot to take in.

“What was the something?”

Spencer looks up again, arches an eyebrow in an unspoken question.

“What was the something that made the NSA job more enticing?”

Spencer’s expression freezes for a second – like a mental hiccup – and then he looks down and wraps his fork in his noodles. “Nothing important. A medical condition. It’s not a big deal, but working from home eases the stress of it.”

“Oh. You seem… fine.”

Spencer looks up. “That’s because I am. It’s nothing. Just a personal annoyance that I have to work around from time to time. We all have those.”

“Sure,” Aaron mumbles, uneasy with how much effort Spencer is putting into dismissing this. But really, it is just another topic that isn’t his business. “So, graduated college at sixteen. That must’ve been interesting.”

Spencer snorts around a mouthful of noodles. “If by ‘interesting’ you mean ‘hell’, then yes.” He chews thoughtfully for a moment, and Aaron stays silent, waiting for the rest. “Don’t get me wrong, it was intellectually satisfying, and I doubt I would’ve had fewer problems if Mom hadn’t encouraged me to skip grades and then apply for early admission. But even if my intellect was that of an adult, my emotional understanding was still childlike. There’s a reason why educating children takes as long as it does. That time is needed for a young person to… figure out their identity, who they want to be. I never had that, and then I was pushed out into the adult world and I had absolutely no clue who I was. In a way, I still don’t.”

Spencer’s eyes flick around quickly before returning to the safety of his meal. “That’s why I got into psychology in the end. To help me understand the things I didn’t have time to learn naturally.”

“And did it help?”

Spencer looks up and gives Aaron an odd half-smile. “In a way. It helped me with non-verbal cues, subtext… I had a hard time reading people and now I don’t. It definitely greased the wheel of social interaction for me, and I’m grateful for that. I depend upon it.”

Depend upon it? How could he depend upon it when he works alone in his home all the time?

“So…” Aaron pauses and wonders if he should give this thought permission to exist. “You’re a genius, who has understandable social deficits that make friendships hard, but you crave them nonetheless. And your solution to this dilemma is to… study _more_ and take a job where you don’t have to interact with people?” Aaron lays a hand along the table top. “I’m sorry, again, I don’t mean to sound condescending. I’m just attempting to understand…”

He waits for the defensiveness or the sudden snapping back of the tentative invitation between them. But Spencer doesn’t take that road. He sets his fork down and sighs tiredly.

“It seems counterintuitive, I know. But for my specific situation, it was the best solution possible. And… it’s utterly amazing what you can learn when you find you have no other choice.”

“How could you have no other choice?” Aaron continues to pry when he knows he shouldn’t. “I mean, look at us. We’re sitting here conversing – two strangers – isn’t it _that_ simple?”

“Is it?” Spencer lobs back. “You yourself admit that you have trouble meeting people. Perhaps this is an aberration for us both. Or perhaps it’s years of training and studying social interactions that we can now effectively mimic. Maybe if we’d met as teenagers we would’ve just stared at each other, unable to relate or talk, and then decided that the other wasn’t worth the bother.”

“Well, in order for us to have been teenagers together, that would’ve involved some time travel on your part…” Aaron watches as Spencer seems to perk up at that idea. “But as a teen I was far more gregarious than I am now. Who knows? We might have been friends…”

“Really?” Spencer leans forward. “So, you’re doing what I’m doing in reverse? Interesting…”

“I’m glad you think so,” Aaron chuckles gently. “Most of the time I think I’m just regressing. And I work with a bunch of people who would heartily agree with that assessment.”

“Well, what do you think happened to cause it?” Spencer seems very interested in this topic all of a sudden, crowding the table and leaning over his forgotten lunch with wide eyes. He is definitely a psych nerd, Aaron concludes. Too bad the NSA found him before the Bureau…

Aaron thinks for a moment and then shrugs, shocked that he’s never considered his own ‘why’ too closely before. “Life. We can’t predict what experiences we’ll have. The sum total of those experiences molds us as obviously as water reshapes stone. It’s almost a form of magic the way we live in symbiosis with the elements that act upon us, isn’t it? It even changes the way we look. People always say that stress ages you. One of my co-workers claims that I look more like my job with every passing year.”

Spencer’s eyebrows squiggle in confusion. “I fail to see how someone can resemble a choice of employment. Unless you anthropomorphize said employment, which is ridiculous. However, you do seem to scowl at a post-graduate skill level…”

“Thanks.” Aaron scowls at Spencer to flex the talent. Spencer grins in response, lighting him up and giving him sharp lines around his mouth. Aaron’s frame straightens in his chair and he suddenly feels too proud, too delighted to have elicited that reaction.

“So, tell me what you were like as a kid. Just for comparison,” Spencer continues grinning and now Aaron finds himself far too willing to talk about himself.

“I was just an average kid from a small town.” He feels a little embarrassed thinking about his backwater beginnings, the girls he kissed whose names he can’t remember, the weed he smoked, the summer nights so hot and boring that he and his friends had nothing better to do than go skinny dipping in the local pond… “Nothing special, from nowhere special.”

“I find that hard to believe.” Spencer says it quietly, grin still in place, and Aaron’s stomach dips like it did on those nights long ago just before he stripped down and hurled himself into the warm water with the rest of his lunatic buddies.

“It’s true. I’m from a town in rural Virginia that no one thinks twice about and everyone swears that they’ll get out of eventually. My dad was a local judge – a big deal there, but nowhere else – and he was a hardass, a drinker.” 

Spencer’s grin fades a little. Aaron keeps going. His dad has never been the important part of his story.

“We didn’t like each other, so I spent as little time at home as possible. But in a small town that’s difficult, so you end up getting creative. You escape any way you can, you know? Keggers in the woods, driving donuts at the quarry in your friend’s shitbox car, mailbox baseball…”

“Mailbox baseball?”

“Umm, one guy drives while another leans out the passenger window and knocks mailboxes off their posts with a bat as you drive by.”

Both of Spencer’s eyebrows pop upwards. “Really.”

“Yeah.” Aaron feels his cheeks heat. “That was before I got straightened out, before I met Haley and decided that I had to stop _talking_ about getting out and find a way to actually _do it_ instead. For a long while, I was just living for the next good time, and to subvert my dad’s reputation. I guess I was wandering around with this anger that life _owed_ me something and not really seeing that I had more than most already.”

“Honestly, that doesn’t seem like a realistic insight for a teenager to have,” Spencer says carefully.

“Maybe. But my attitude was dangerous. It made me hungry to get free of a place that I saw as a prison. Eventually, getting free meant actually getting myself to a decent college and into law school, but in the beginning, it just meant booze and drugs and other unnecessary risk-taking behaviors. I was a dumb kid who thought he had the world’s number, just like all of my friends.”

“Huh.” Spencer looks confused again. “I’m sorta failing to see the ‘fun’ part in all of this.”

Aaron sighs. “Okay, well… admittedly, I wasn’t a happy kid and I aggressively denied that by becoming a bit of a hooligan.”

Spencer’s mouth twitches at the use of the word, but then it disappears as his focus intensifies.

“And, yes, many of the friends I had back then were just ‘good time buddies’ who didn’t know about my home life and wouldn’t stick around when things got serious for me. But it wasn’t all bad. I wasn’t a poster child for teenage wasteland.”

Now Spencer’s expression turns, as if Aaron has begun speaking a foreign language. Aaron sighs; he’s getting old.

“Right. You probably don’t know what that is…”

“Umm-”

“In that case, this will blow your mind a little. There was an old movie house in my town. It was a classic from the times of Vaudeville – high, vaulted ceiling, a stage with a pit for musicians down in front of the screen… the whole deal. It was usually boring because it only had one screen and it would show the same movie for six weeks at a time, so there wasn’t a lot of variety. But once a year, it hosted a travelling laser light performance group.”

If it’s possible, Spencer looks even more confused.

“Like Laser Zeppelin? Laser Who?”

Spencer blinks. “A laser can’t be a person.”

“No, no…” Aaron can’t help but chuckle a little. “The group brought in a bunch of lasers that they programmed to music, like Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Beatles. My favorite was the nights they did it to Pink Floyd. They projected the lasers onto the screen, or the ceiling, and folks would just watch and marinate in the music.”

“Huh.”

“I guess you had to be there. It was a lot more fun than it sounds. I used to go to every show they gave in their two-week run. But I didn’t have a lot of money, so most of the time a buddy and I would sneak in and lay down in the music pit where no one would spot us. We’d smoke a little weed and just _float_ for a while in the music. We weren’t worried about our futures or our parents… we’d just dream, or talk about crazy stuff, or just be content living in that moment when what was in front of us was beautiful and uncomplicated. To this day, those are some of my favorite memories.”

“Actually…” Spencer pauses, going inward. “That does sound sorta amazing. What did you and your friend talk about?”

Aaron casts back to that dusty theater floor, lying just out of sight and smelling of sweaty boy and murky dope, excitedly babbling about strange ideas while passing the joint back to his friend, damp fingers brushing and holding too long.

“Dan was really into space travel,” Aaron smiles thinking about it. “This was back before NASA had all of its troubles. The space program was still exciting. Dan read a dumbed-down physics text book from the local library, and he was hung up on Special Relativity and Einstein-Rosen bridges. Stuff like that. Dan always wanted to talk about wormholes when he was stoned. It was probably part of his escape fantasy.”

Aaron laughs and Spencer seems entranced. It’s enough of a change to make Aaron’s stomach swoop weirdly the way it occasionally did for his long-forgotten friend.

“Well, I wouldn’t need to get stoned to be excited about wormholes – they are cool.”

Spencer enthuses with the same joy he’s shown for advanced mathematics. Aaron thinks that he’s probably a nerd for most subjects, and that’s fine by him. Unlike Dan, Spencer probably understands what he’s talking about, and Aaron’s always been subconsciously drawn to intelligence. He remembers the day he knew that he was going to leave Dan behind in that town; after Haley got under his skin, told him to quit getting high and to get serious about his future. Dan didn’t have money for college and wasn’t smart enough to get a scholarship. When Aaron moved on it would be without the only friend he’d ever had who encouraged him to dream beyond their reality. 

“We usually ended up talking about space, and time, and hope – but not in a desperate, claustrophobic sort of way. Not like we were two hick kids worried that we’d never amount to anything, which was kind of how we saw our lives most of the time back then.”

“Dan sounds like a good friend,” Spencer interrupts quietly. “Not a ‘mailbox baseball’ friend.”

Aaron remembers the last time he hid in the music pit at the Empire Theater. He remembers being scared for reasons he didn’t understand. He remembers reaching for Dan’s hand beside him, clutching it tightly, and how Dan’s hand clutched his back.

“Yeah, he was a good friend,” he murmurs, wondering where the years went. “He was one of the only people I _really_ talked to.”

“What happened to him?”

Aaron sighs away the memories and shrugs. “I got out of Manassas County and he didn’t. For all our talk about how our lives were hell there, we didn’t have any idea what life was like beyond the borders of our town. To us, any big city – let alone D.C. – seemed like the promised land. But big ideas, big lives, come with their own unique problems. We didn’t appreciate that at seventeen, and some of us aren’t built for it. Last I heard, he got married, had a few kids, got divorced… I think he lives in a house two miles away from where he was born. I haven’t been back in years, so…”

“But… he was your friend…” Spencer says after a tense moment.

“He was,” Aaron nods. “But maybe it’s like you said, he’s a love I outgrew. It doesn’t make those memories of us any less meaningful to me.”

“You… loved him?”

It’s Aaron’s turn to look confused. “Of course. He was my friend. Probably my best friend from that time. Why wouldn’t I love him? He knew pretty much everything there was to know about seventeen-year-old me, even why I never seemed to want to go home.”

“It’s just unusual to hear a man say that he loves a friend.” Spencer’s eyes flick to Aaron’s, and then away as if he’s done with the topic.

“You mean it’s unusual for a straight man of my age to say something like that, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Spencer meets his gaze again. No bullshit.

“Well, I suppose I’m just surprising that way. I’ve never had so many friends that I feel the need to hedge how I care about them in order to fortify my masculinity. Life’s too short for that nonsense.”

“You are _definitely_ surprising,” Spencer agrees with gentle smile that makes Aaron feel odd: both unsettled and strangely proud at the same time. “I’m starting to think that your suit doesn’t accommodate your personality too well.”

Aaron feels his eyebrows rise, and then he smoothes a palm down his tie along his chest like a reflex. “Most of the time I think I’m very much _the suit_.”

“Not to me,” Spencer shakes his head, still smiling. “Not after boho café visits, misdemeanor batting practice, and a history of being an astrophysics-dreaming, teenaged hop-head. All the double vented-jackets and soft shoulder seams in the world couldn’t convince me that you’re _that_ uninteresting now.”

Spencer ends it all by chuckling, but Aaron is stunned by how he is seen by this particular set of eyes. Almost everyone he knows, everyone he considers a friend, sees his buttoned-down seriousness, the thoughtful quiet that wraps around him like smoke. They see The Suit. The only people who’ve known him any other way for the last twenty years are Haley and Jack. But Spencer – who’s known him for less than a day and a half – sees him as someone else entirely. In fact, Aaron has told Spencer more in their brief association than his team have managed to pull from him collectively over the past decade. He sags back into his chair and stares at his half-finished soup, wondering _why_ he doesn’t let people in anymore. When did that begin?

Spencer continues chuckling, not bothered by Aaron’s apparent shock or sudden mutism. He twirls his fork back into his noodles and acts as if this is how people hang out together – all uncommon anecdotes and strange realizations. Aaron’s sure that he should find this more upsetting than he does. The vulnerability that this exposure reveals should be extremely uncomfortable for him. It usually is. He watches Spencer fight with his noodles and wonders _why_ that isn’t happening here. Is Spencer another Dan? Has it taken him almost thirty years to find a replacement for that friend he lost? Has he been waiting all this time to be seen again? Maybe that’s what this compulsion is – the uncharacteristically breathless need to share; it’s the beginning of the addiction to someone, a person who becomes more necessary and valuable the longer you know them.

Their waiter appears at their table again, looking harried and disinterested. Aaron only now realizes that the restaurant is teeming and loud – it didn’t seem that way when they came in and sat down. He’s a little troubled that he forgot his environment so easily in favor of his company.

“Everything all right here?” the waiter asks, not really interested in their answer.

Spencer looks up from his noodles and gives the guy a smile that makes him look younger than he is, even with the sharp laugh lines and shadows around his eyes.

“We’re doing great. Thanks.”

Spencer glances over at Aaron across the table and the smile stays. Aaron feels tingly and energized by it, and then he forces his eyes back to his soup. Yes, there’s something unique happening here. He feels a small smile of his own curl his mouth, and the excitement in his gut builds. Spencer’s right: they _are_ doing great. 

\---- 

Lunch stretches out longer than socially acceptable – no matter which social convention you adopt – and by the time they make it outside again, the sky is dark. The rain has moved on and the sky has cleared, but a crisp cold has descended instead that makes Aaron shuffle in his coat and think about the hardness of winter. He looks back over his shoulder at Spencer as he exits the restaurant, backlit by the glow of its lights and the chaos of its kitchen. He doesn’t want to walk out into the dark November night suddenly. He wants to steer Spencer back into the scuzzy restaurant and deny reality for a few more hours. He wants to unravel more of this person, he wants to laugh and forget about work. He worries that when they part company on the sidewalk in a few minutes that they’ll never meet again. He feels dread at the idea – actual, gut-cramping dread. But that’s crazy, isn’t it? He’s just a guy. Some random fellow met in a random café…

Spencer looks up and gives him a nervous smile. Aaron wonders if he’s experiencing the same sense of unfounded dread. Wouldn’t that be something?

“Thanks for the four-hour coffee and sliced turtle’s foot soup break,” he rumbles with a cheeky smile.

“Hey, I told you the menu was eccentric. It wasn’t a dare for you to find the most bizarre item and order it, you know.” Spencer grins, shuffling in his too-thin coat.

“I’m experimenting with fun. It’s bound to go wrong sometimes,” he says dryly and they both laugh, clouds of relief and amusement ghosting into the cold night above them. Their laughter fades and they are left staring at each other as they both shift their weight against the creeping chill. The dread roars back as Aaron wonders what he should do. Are they friends? Should he give Spencer his number? That seems like more of a ‘date’ sort of move, and he worries the edge of his phone in his coat pocket while he considers that. He knows that he doesn’t want to simply say ‘goodnight’ and walk away back into his predictable, serious life. He _likes_ this person, and that’s exciting. That’s okay, isn’t it?

“Ummm, do you want to… meet up tomorrow?” Spencer looks nervous, his hands punched deep into his coat pockets but Aaron can see his fingers moving against the fabric. “There’s something I’d like to show you. I think you’ll really enjoy it.”

Aaron’s chest constricts as he experiences a flash of excitement quickly followed by disappointment. It forces his breath out of him unevenly, pluming around his face like smoke.

“Tomorrow’s Friday. I have to work.”

“Well, after that,” Spencer fidgets and looks expectant. 

“You don’t understand,” Aaron sighs. “My job doesn’t have regular hours. I could get called away on a case. I could be in a different state by dinner. It’s a nightmare to schedule around.” He thinks for a moment. “What about another time? Sunday, perhaps?”

Spencer physically diminishes, as if he’s been pretending to be taller this whole time. His expression fades into something carefully calculated. Aaron is starting to recognize this as the armor he wears when he’s trying to keep himself to himself.

“It kinda has to be tomorrow,” he mumbles and looks away.

“Why?”

Spencer shrugs and focuses on a passing cab. It feels like he’s suddenly cut Aaron out of his view, just like that, and a thin vein of panic slides into Aaron’s sense of dread. “It’s not important,” Spencer tosses back, still looking into the street. Then he turns and gives Aaron a polite smile while the lines around his eyes are pinched. “This was nice. Thanks for hanging out today. It was great to meet you.”

“Breaking up with me already?” The panic makes him say it, but somehow it manages to come out sounding glib. His tone and the accompanying smirk completely hide how upset he is at the idea that Spencer’s about to walk away from him.

Spencer’s expression shifts instantly, his eyes comically wide with his mouth dropping open. The lighting’s bad, but Aaron can imagine a ferocious blush rising over him as well. The reaction strikes him as hilarious as well as interesting; a moment before he acted as if he couldn’t care less if they crossed paths again.

“It was a joke, Spencer,” Aaron chuckles despite his unease.

“Ah,” Spencer rasps and then clears his throat. “I didn’t know you made those. You know, without advanced notice or anything…”

“I told you: I’m experimenting with fun.” 

Speaking of experimenting… His dread fades into the background as he wraps his fingers around his phone and pulls it from his coat pocket. Aaron steps forward, unlocks the screen and holds it out to Spencer. 

“Listen,” he says softly. “Give me your number and I’ll call if tomorrow seems manageable, okay? I can’t make any promises, but… I’ll try.”

Spencer blinks at him, and then at his phone for a handful of seconds. Then he reaches out and takes it, his fingers skimming Aaron’s in the process. Aaron watches as Spencer’s hand dances quickly over his screen, and then hesitantly offers it back to him. This time, Aaron’s fingers outline Spencer’s, and it isn’t an accident.

Aaron pockets his phone and wonders _again_ why he’s acting the way he is. Behind his worry and confusion and delight is an undeniable excitement that they might meet again tomorrow. It’s not likely, but he _wants_ it to happen. He’s staring at Spencer, who’s staring back, still looking a little shell-shocked, and it should be an awkward moment that they both want out of immediately. But instead they stand there, seemingly happy to be confused and cold on a street corner together.

“So, ummm,” Aaron huffs, breaking the _whatever_ is going on right now. “Tomorrow then. Maybe.”

“Yeah,” Spencer huffs as well and steps away. “Tomorrow.”

Aaron watches him back up, check the street for traffic, and then glance over his shoulder at him, the weird pinched smile on his face again. “Goodbye, Aaron.”

“Goodbye, Spencer,” he says quietly as Spencer lopes into the street. He hopes that it isn’t goodbye at all.


	5. Day 4,034, part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Due to ongoing tech issues, this chapter has been split into two sections. Hopefully I will have resolved my laptop woes by the next posting date. Sorry for the short update.

He waits all day for Aaron to call. His phone is always within inches of his reach and after eleven a.m. he stops questioning why he’s acting like a moonstruck teenager and just accepts the frisson of anxiety that will be his companion for the rest of his Friday. This is the last day he has with this face. After today, he will cease to exist for Aaron. He just wants _a little bit more_ before that happens.

Coffee together had been amazing: awkward and strange and completely engrossing. It reminded him of a date he went on when he was sixteen; she’d been nothing to look at but the moment they started talking he was hooked. It was instantaneous intellectual attraction, easy and electric at the same time. It didn’t last – nothing ever did with him – but it went on for months and when she eventually ended it, it was the first time his heart broke. He’s uncomfortable thinking about that girl and Aaron simultaneously – they aren’t the same. He wasn’t on a date with Aaron last night. Aaron is experienced, mature, and obviously not a plain girl who accepted a date with a local nerd because she didn’t have a lot of more appealing options. And Aaron was definitely not plain. Spencer closes his eyes and tries to shake away the thought. _I’ve never been this way before…_ And then his brain helpfully replays the moment when their fingers brushed across Aaron’s phone with stunning clarity.

Christ. Fuck _off_ with this confusion already…

And what did it all matter if he didn’t call?

The day fades. He roams around his house angrily, cursing the sun for setting, avoiding surfaces that will reflect his thin, square-jawed face back to him. Tomorrow he’s someone else, but he wants to stay like this, not because he likes the face, but because _Aaron does._ He thinks about fighting the change. He’s done it in the past. He only changes if he falls asleep; if he doesn’t allow himself to rest, he remains the same. It’s a stupid, untenable plan, as he knows from experience, but maybe he could go without sleep for a day. Just one more day, in case Aaron can’t get away like he said… He already feels exhausted by this. What would one more day really give him? He’ll change – there’s no stopping it. He has to leave Aaron behind like all the rest, even more so since it appears that his crush is escalating dangerously.

The dinner hour arrives and still nothing. Spencer watches a pre-cooked meal rotate in his microwave as he tries to settle back into the familiarity of his life. He waits for the numbness to return. He wonders how long it will be before something new catches his attention: a pretty girl, a new theory, a compelling question… He sighs and thinks about mathematics. It always calms him. Math is his sole, erstwhile companion and its steadfastness pulls him through when he despairs in his life. But math never questions, math never laughs or makes his stomach dip with excitement. Math will never hold him and tell him that he matters.

There’s a loud buzzing from behind him. He whips around and waits. It happens again and he gets confused. Then he looks down at his table. His phones wiggles across its surface as the buzzing happens once more. It’s the damned phone he never answers – no wonder why he doesn’t recognize the noise. He pounces on it and fumbles to accept the call.

“Hello, yes, hi…”

_“Spencer?”_

“Yes, hello.”

 _“Hey.”_ There’s an obvious pause. _“It’s Aaron.”_

“Yes, of course it is. Hello.” _Jesus, stop that_ , he tells himself as his stomach does cartwheels.

_“I’m sorry I couldn’t call earlier – it was a hectic day. Is it too late? Perhaps it’s too late…”_

“No,” Spencer rushes. “No, there’s still time. If, you know, you’re still interested in meeting up…” _I still have some time left. Please…_

_“Okay, well, in that case, yes. I’d like to meet. Where are we going?”_

“I can’t tell you that. It’s a secret.”

There’s a sigh over the line that Spencer hopes is a fond one. _“That makes rendezvousing a bit of an issue, doesn’t it?”_

“Where’s your sense of adventure, Aaron, of whimsy?” Spencer laughs nervously. “Where’s the trust for a stranger you met two days ago, huh?”

 _“You’re right. How appallingly rude of me,”_ Aaron says dryly.

“Well, you’re forgiven if you meet me at the main gate of Georgetown University in, say, an hour, okay?”

There’s another pause that ramps up Spencer’s sense of doubt once more. _“Can we make it two hours instead? I have to go home first, get my son over to his aunt’s place…”_

“Sure,” Spencer huffs too enthusiastically. “Absolutely. Take your time.”

 _“You’re really not going to tell me what we’re doing tonight?”_ Aaron asks after a moment.

“I’m really not,” Spencer shakes his head though no one’s around to see it. Aaron huffs across the phone.

_“Okay, then. See you in two hours.”_

Aaron hangs up, and Spencer does as well allowing himself a small but genuine victory dance around his kitchen table as his microwave beeps. He could do this, stretch this out just a little longer and hold this _whatever it was_ close for another night. He’ll never know what he’s done to deserve his curse, but surely, he also deserves a bright spot of happiness here and there for surviving it as long as he has.

He races to his bedroom and his oversized closet, throwing the doors wide to view the suits, dresses, sports uniforms, children’s outfits, mismatched shoes, accessories, and random collections of clutter. His eyes roam over everything hungrily and then his spine slouches.

“Shit. I have nothing to wear,” he mutters.


	6. Day 4,034, part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the interruption in updating. Stuff happened. It's a lame excuse, but it's all I've got.

He gets there too early and ends up pacing and slowly convincing himself that Aaron simply won’t come. He’s wrong of course, realizing he’s whipped himself into an anxious frenzy over nothing when he spots Aaron behind the wheel of a black SUV parking in the visitor’s section just a few minutes after the agreed-upon time. Spencer watches him look around and then walk through the frosty night air towards him while Spencer does nothing to identify himself or greet him. He’s sort of stuck on how Aaron looks: he’s in a crispy-tailored dark blue suit with an equally dark gray shirt open at the collar with no tie in sight. In the hit-and-miss lighting of the parking lot, his face looks as if it’s floating towards Spencer out of the night, like he’s a phantom or a dream. Aaron pulls up in front of him, where he’s leaning against his car hoping to seem cooler than he is, and grins.

“That’s quite the beater,” Aaron nods towards Spencer’s Volkswagen. Spencer blinks and looks back at his car, a little hurt.

“It’s not a beater. It’s Margot, and she’s a classy lady who’s never let me down. A little respect, please.”

“Margot? You named your car?” His grin gets wider, and given the already-startling suit, it’s a little unnerving. Spencer clears his throat and affects a significant pout to hide how off balance he is. He stands away from his beloved car and gives the hood a fond pat.

“Like _that’s_ the strangest thing you’ve realized about me so far,” he says dryly. “And isn’t a man naming his automobile sort of shockingly common? I thought it was my one toehold on masculine normality…”

Aaron laughs and it plumes around him in the cold. Then he reins it all back in, puts on a serious glare and stands as straight as possible. “My apologies, to both your masculinity and Margot. But mostly Margot.” He turns towards the car and bows deeply. “M’lady…”

Spencer is now completely flummoxed by both the suit and the entertaining man wearing it. This isn’t how he expected this to go, and yet… he’s a little excited that it is. He shakes his head, hair flopping into his face in the process, and decides to _stick to the plan_ and not allow his confusion to start riffing on its own accord.

“So, uh… still couldn’t shake the suit, huh?” He clears his throat and flicks a finger in Aaron’s direction when he looks at him.

“I eighty-sixed the tie,” Aaron rumbles warmly. “Baby steps, Spencer.”

Spencer shivers a little and tells himself it’s just the cold. They should get moving.

“So, what’s the plan?” Aaron continues, eyes flicking around curiously. “Now that I’m here, are you gonna let me in on it?”

“Uh, no,” Spencer chokes out as he turns and starts walking towards a dimly-lit security door on the far side of the parking lot. “Quit trying to ruin the surprise. Just… come on…”

He can hear Aaron chuckling behind him. “You know, this is how most of my investigations start: some unsuspecting victim agrees to go somewhere they don’t know with someone they trust…”

“I’m unsure if I should be flattered that you trust me, or upset that you still have a nagging suspicion that you’ll end up shooting me…”

“Can’t it be both?” Aaron laughs and the sound makes Spencer laugh as well in spite of himself.

“Smartass,” Spencer grumbles and then hurries to the door, quickly looking around to make sure they haven’t been spotted. Then he’s fishing around for his tools in his pocket and drops to his knees. There’s hesitant shuffling behind him.

“Ummm, are you doing what I think you’re doing?”

“What do you think I’m doing?” he responds to buy time as his fingers make quick work of the lock.

“Spencer, I’m an FBI agent and you work for the NSA!” Aaron hisses.

“So then why are you asking the question? You _know_ what I’m doing.”

“That’s _not_ why I asked it.”

The last tumbler catches and Spencer rises, pulling the door open and giving the deserted parking lot another glance.

“C’mon, Aaron.” Spencer nods his head to the doorway but turns to find Aaron scowling at him. Spencer rolls his eyes. “You used to do drugs, destroy property… this is nothing. We aren’t stealing anything. It’s a misdemeanor. People always lock up the fun stuff – we’re just gonna go visit it without permission, that’s all.”

Aaron crosses his arms over his chest and looks extremely formidable. “I’m a lawyer. I know exactly what laws we’re breaking, Spencer.”

“Well, great. Between the lawyer stuff, the cop stuff, and super-secret spy stuff, we can probably get out of any trouble we get into. But trust me, there won’t be any trouble. No one will know we were ever here. And where we’re going? You’re gonna love it. I promise.”

Spencer gives Aaron a look that he hopes resembles pleading innocence; they are sorta on a clock here. Aaron glares for a handful of seconds, and then sighs loudly and walks through the door.

_Okay, excellent. Step one achieved: B & E._

Spencer shuts them into a hallway lit only by an emergency exit sign over their heads. When he turns, Aaron has become a silhouette, and yet he still manages to suggest he’s unimpressed from the shadows. Spencer shakes off the feeling – because his overriding impulse is _to impress_ \- and shuffles ahead of Aaron in the hallway once again.

“This way,” he mumbles. Aaron doesn’t respond, just falls into step behind him. And then he sighs.

“I’m calling the university tomorrow to let them know that you can gain access to their buildings with a lock picking gun.”

“I didn’t use a picking gun,” Spencer says, scandalized. “I did it old school, like an artist. There’s no challenge in using a gun.”

“Jesus, I think that makes it worse…”

Spencer turns suddenly in the dark and Aaron bumps into him before he realizes and stops. “Seriously? You’ve never picked a lock?”

“It’s not something they encourage at the Bureau. You know, considering the hard on they have for procedure and lawful search & seizures,” Aaron says dryly. “Besides, a warrant opens every locked door I’ve ever met. If not, then there’s an agent on my team who likes smashing into solid objects, so…”

He shrugs in the dark, and Spencer finds himself sighing loudly in response. “Thought you were a hooligan,” he grumbles, and heads back down the hallway.

“Well, I’m here now, risking my standing with the D.C. Bar.” Aaron sounds conciliatory. Spencer smiles a little at that. “Where is ‘here’ anyway?”

“Did you know that Georgetown has an astronomical observatory?” There’s no answer, just a continuum of footfalls. “It has a telescope and everything. It isn’t as good as the one at the U.S. Naval Observatory, but breaking in there brings federal and military heat.”

“Oh, thank you for easing me into this new life of crime. That’s generous of you.”

“I do what I can,” Spencer snarks and hears a snort behind him as they come to a door and Spencer peaks through before hustling beyond it.

“So, we’re going to see the telescope?” Aaron whispers after a pause and surreptitious jogging down another empty hallway.

“Not exactly. You see, the astronomy lab is pretty active at night, for obvious reasons. The telescope room is probably lousy with undergrads right now. But other parts of the department are virtually abandoned after hours, just like the rest of the campus.”

“I’m getting a feeling that you’ve done this a lot,” Aaron sounds suspicious. Spencer just shrugs.

“What about security?” Aaron sighs. “Surely the university has campus police patrols…”

“Campus police patrol the grounds. Each department has their own security firm contract. It’s a mess of minimum wage-territorialism. Honestly, you’d think that a bunch of PhDs would’ve thought about that inefficiency at some point…”

“Oh my god. You _have_ done this a lot.”

“Be thankful,” Spencer shushes as they speed down yet another darkened corridor. “It means I know the security schedule, and that guards only check the astrophysics rooms twice a shift because they never find anything of note on their rounds and the night shift guys would rather sit in their office and surf the web instead.”

“Wow. Making America great again,” Aaron whispers disapprovingly. Spencer nods.

“You said it. The first round happened at eleven. They won’t check again until two.”

Spencer leads them to another door that he has to pick. Aaron grumbles incoherently behind him again, but doesn’t do anything to stop him. Spencer smiles to himself and once again marvels at the trust. He rises to his feet, pockets his tools, and opens the door into a black room.

“We’re here.” He can’t hide the glee in his voice. He hopes he’s guessed correctly. He hopes it’s a pleasant surprise. “Just stand inside the doorway while I get the lights.”

The door closes with a soft click of the lock plunging them into cave-like darkness. Aaron makes a low rumble but Spencer moves quickly, using the memory of the room in his mind to negotiate it without sight. He reaches the lighting board and fumbles until he feels the switches he needs. The room comes alive with soft up-lighting along the walkways and the baseboards of the walls. It’s enough to see by, but still quite dim. He hears Aaron from across the room and it’s not surprising: sound echoes here like any other auditorium. It’s a sort of theater-in-the-round set-up but with less seats, and they recline like dentist chairs. The entire focus of the room leads to the ceiling, but as Spencer watches, it takes Aaron a moment to realize that. Then his eyes move up and Spencer, with a slightly shameful flare for the dramatic, choses that instant to start the display program. The projection lights up the room in blues and violets as it slowly fades through the images sent over the years from deep space satellites, telescopes, and artist renderings of scientific data. The stars and gas clouds and speculative planets morph in a delicate transition that will loop endlessly. Spencer knows this because he’s watched it for hours on his own.

“What…” Aaron’s face is a blank canvas of wonder painted in blue and aqua and purple as he stares, open-mouthed, at the ceiling. Spencer’s gut both flips and tightens at the same instant. He hurries back over to his side.

“It’s a star chart room. That’s what they call it, though I’m not sure how accurate the term ‘chart’ is in this instance.” Spencer watches Aaron as Aaron watches the universe move across the ceiling. He can’t seem to look away. “My understanding is that the astrophysics department got a big donation years ago and it was stipulated that they had to build… _this._ ”

“Amazing,” Aaron breathes. He sounds like a child when he says it. Spencer feels his cheeks heat as a stupid grin spreads across his face.

“You can load anything into the projector,” Spencer continues babbling on autopilot, mesmerized by Aaron’s fascination. “Professors give immersive lectures about galactic geography and new NASA data from Hubble, Juno, Cassini, things like that. Some teachers project overheads from their lectures from the 70s, just to be dicks.” Spencer chuckles. “I think the students like it because, even if the lecture is boring, it’s a comfortable place to nap.”

“How could anyone find this boring?” Aaron whispers, light flickering across him as the image slowly changes. Spencer watches him in silence for a moment: his head arched back, his Adam’s apple prominent above the collar of his dark shirt. Spencer’s mouth goes dry suddenly seeing how the light erases Aaron’s flecks of grey and the deep lines of his face. It flattens everything about him into smooth, geometric planes, and Spencer has the urge to brush his fingers over them, to map him out inside his mind. 

He swallows hard and shakes it off. Then, he reaches and lays a hand on Aaron’s arm. It wakes them both from their internal worlds and brings them back to the present and each other.

“C’mon,” Spencer croaks, letting go of Aaron’s sleeve after a moment. “You’ll hurt your neck standing around. There’s a better way to view it.”

Spencer walks down the aisle next to the theater seats and he feels Aaron following him. He reaches the front row and keeps going, but Aaron’s footsteps halt. He turns and finds Aaron hesitating, half-stepped into the seating of the front row.

“No,” Spencer shakes his head gently and smiles. “This way.”

Aaron looks confused but follows him as Spencer climbs the riser to the modest lecture podium and then vaults over the divider that separates it from what would be an orchestra pit in a traditional theater. He lands with a soft grunt well below the divider and amongst the technology that makes this wonder work. Aaron peers over the wall curiously.

“If you lie down over here,” Spencer points to an empty stretch of flooring close to the auditorium’s far wall. “It feels like you’re floating in the sky. It’s awesome.”

Aaron considers and then a moment later vaults effortlessly over the wall as if he isn’t wearing an over-tailored suit. He quickly shuffles up next to Spencer and allows himself to be led to the remote space, through the cables and industrial-grade power drops and the humming heat from the massive projectors. He sits down on the floor obediently, without a care for how dusty it might be. Spencer kneels down to join him, surprised.

“Sorry about the dirt,” he mumbles. Aaron looks at him quizzically. “Your suit… it’s a really nice suit.”

It’s hard to tell, but Aaron appears to blush a little as his palm smoothes down the front of his jacket and undoes the buttons so he can lie back comfortably. “It can be cleaned,” he rumbles, and Spencer’s stomach flips again without his consent. _Step two achieved: convince Aaron to participate in your ‘crazy’._

Aaron stretches out and becomes entranced by the view again. Spencer does the same, but he’s staring at Aaron, not the stars. He’s flooded with conflicts. There’s very little doubt that he’s attracted to this man, and that is new and disturbingly strange for him. He doesn’t yet know if it is _the connection_ he’s attracted to, or something more than that. It’s happened before; he’s found himself absorbed by a woman, then climbs in bed with her only to realize that he’s _not_ turned on by her body. It’s been embarrassing on both sides, but even so, he doesn’t know which side he’s on in this instance. He’s also conflicted because, no matter how this evening turns out, it will be his last night with Aaron. There’s no circumventing the change, and people aren’t built to handle the level of weirdness that Spencer negotiates daily. Firstly, Aaron wouldn’t believe him if Spencer chose to reveal his secret. And secondly, it would expose the truth that Spencer doesn’t want to acknowledge: however Aaron feels about him, it is in relation to _his body_. Once he changes, so will Aaron’s view of him.

So, the desire to get closer is pointless, as is wondering about this sudden sexual confusion. Even friendship is off the table after tonight. But Spencer _wants_ Aaron to stay, to know him, to see him. He wants someone to last longer than three days.

Aaron clues into the fact that Spencer is staring at him. His eyes shift to Spencer as he reaches back to brace his head against his arm. He raises his eyebrows but doesn’t say anything. Spencer feels caught, his face flames in the dimness, and then he fumbles around in his suit jacket to try and push it all away. He pulls out his phone and a small black box, then he lies down next to Aaron and busies himself with apps and acts like that takes all of his focus. Eventually, he gets to what he wants and presses play. The black box comes to life on the floor between them and Spencer drops his phone down next to it.

“Is that… Pink Floyd?” Aaron looks at the speaker like it’s a living thing.

“Dark Side of the Moon,” Spencer nods. “It’s not really my era of music, but the internet tells me this is their seminal work. Though that seems hotly contested by fans.”

Aaron laughs and leans back into the floor like it’s going to become his new home. “I’ll bet. They had plenty of great albums. It’s worth the time to figure out which ones you like. But Dark Side is perfect for this. Just perfect.”

Aaron sighs, a satisfied curl to his mouth that makes Spencer unjustifiably proud. God, he wishes they could keep each other. As friends, or whatever, until one of them got tired of the other naturally…

“No lasers though,” Spencer mumbles. “Sorry.”

Aaron shifts to look at him again, his expression easy and open. “Why are you apologizing? This is so much better than what I had as a kid. And you listened. You paid attention to the details and… did all of this for my enjoyment. You know that most people don’t do that, right? So many aren’t really listening. They’re just waiting for a break in conversation so they can start talking again…”

Spencer feels rebuffed and it lights a hurt deep down in the childlike part of him that he thought he’d banished forever. _People don’t do this…_ He looks up at the slowly swirling images of the stars above them and thinks _‘perhaps this is for the best then’_.

“I kind of want to know why you’d do this for me,” Aaron continues, his tone that same soft invitation it was on the first day they met. “But I’m afraid to ruin it.”

“Ruin it?” Spencer rolls his head to look at Aaron again. “So, you don’t think it’s… weird? Or inappropriate?”

Aaron takes a moment to look at him – really look as if he can see down into his bones – before answering. “I think it’s weird in the best sort of way. Weird in the way things in my youth were, when they didn’t seem odd at all. Just how life was back then. It seems like there’s been an escalation in that type of weirdness in my life since I met you.” Aaron sighs. “I’ll admit: I’m not sure how to feel about that.”

And suddenly Spencer is lying on the floor at Georgetown University with an almost-stranger having some sort of thrilling cardiac event. He can’t breathe, he can’t think, and he just keeps blinking like an idiot as his heart gives up the pretense of delusion and just tries to punch its way out of his ribcage instead. 

Because Spencer wants to kiss this man. Both his body and his mind agree on it.

Fuck. This situation is _irrevocably fucked._

Instead, his hands fumble around in his jacket for the other accessory he’s brought along. He’s almost forgotten it, but is now glad of the salvation it offers him. He pulls out the silver flask and takes a long pull even though it burns his throat; he needs it and he needs it to calm him down. Then he silently offers it to Aaron, who’s eyebrows pop up questioningly.

“Whisky,” he clarifies hoarsely, his voice lower than normal because of the burn. “Without the ‘e’.”

“Ahh,” Aaron nods and takes the flask, fingers brushing gently as it passes between them. “The good stuff.”

Spencer watches as Aaron takes a long pull without any discomfort. He watches his throat, follows the line of it down until it is lost in his dark shirt. He’s mesmerized by the notch between Aaron’s collar bones. He wants to touch it – a spot off limits to friends… Dammit. Maybe the whisky will make things worse.

“I don’t know if it’s the good stuff or not,” he admits. “Hard liquor isn’t really my thing either. It’s from Scotland though, hence the absent ‘e’.”

“So, Floyd and hooch for you. Breaking and entering for me. We’re having quite the night of firsts, aren’t we?” Aaron chuckles at him and takes another sip before passing the flask back.

_You have no idea._

“How did you know I’d like whisky?”

“A bit of a read,” Spencer shrugs. “You mentioned teenaged drunkenness, which I’m sure translated into college drunkenness eventually. You probably tried all sorts of things. Beer probably became boring and an inefficient way to get truly inebriated. As you matured into the thoughtful observer you’ve become, that probably effected your modes of escapism as well. As stresses increased in your life, including the decline of your marriage, you probably fell back into old habits. It’s a reasonable conclusion that your recklessness didn’t cease to exist; it merely became more sophisticated as your experiences dictated.” Spencer pauses, realizing that he’s let his mouth run away with him again. Aaron is staring at him, amusement faded and a serious caution in its place. “You have a taste for it, don’t you?” Spencer murmurs with a recklessness of his own.

Aaron waits for a heartbeat. “For whisky, or self-destruction?”

Spencer holds his breath and shakes his head because he doesn’t know the answer to his own question for once.

Aaron gives him a hard look which makes Spencer’s gut tighten. Then he holds out his hand and flicks his fingers at the flask. Spencer passes it to him and Aaron’s hand closes over his and holds for much longer than he should. He eventually pulls the container free and takes another long sip before speaking again.

“It’s both,” Aaron says quietly. “Always has been. I’ve never been able to shake it no matter how hard I tried.” He sighs loudly and shifts his gaze to the stars again. “I can’t believe I’m telling you any of this.”

Neither can Spencer. In fact, he’s stunned by it, or perhaps he’s just stunned by the fact that he’s never seen the locked down, silent version of Aaron that he keeps alluding to. He wonders what that _really_ means. It makes him feel special, like he matters. It makes him want to give up his secrets too, and that’s wholly dangerous.

He lies next to Aaron and turns his eyes to the stars as well, sinking down into the flow of the strange music that seems both alien and relatable simultaneously. He thinks about all the nights he’s done this alone, without any of the added layers that tonight has offered. Then he imagines a teenaged Aaron in a musty, small town theater doing this with his friend, and he envies that faceless, almost-forgotten boy. He envies his freedom and his friendship, and he envies the access he had to a man that Spencer wishes he could have more of. The music keeps playing, the stars keep shifting, and from time to time they pass the flask back and forth between them. Spencer holds his breath, waiting for Aaron’s fingers, and he doesn’t let himself gasp until the sound of their clothes creasing covers the noise.

“Did you ever tell anyone?” Spencer shocks himself by speaking. Who knows how long they’ve just been lying there in the dark? “About the things that scare you, I mean… your friend, maybe. From your hometown?”

“Dan?”

“Yeah. Did you talk to him about it?”

Aaron sighs. “Sometimes. We were usually high. I’m not sure how voluntary it was.”

“Oh.”

Spencer hears shuffling and turns to find Aaron has rolled to face him, expression focused. It’s a little unnerving, and Spencer decides that Aaron has no idea how intimidating that expression is on him.

“Actually, that’s not true,” Aaron murmurs. “I knew what I was saying at the time. Getting high was just an excuse in case Dan thought it was strange afterwards.”

“Did he ever say it was strange?”

Aaron gets a faraway look about him. “No. We were… too close for that I guess.”

“Well…” Spencer worries about the words he wants to say next. Then the whisky makes up his mind for him. “Maybe he loved you too. The way you loved him.”

Because that part of Aaron’s story stuck out as odd to him, no matter his justification for it.

“I told you,” Aaron says lowly after a moment. “It wasn’t like that. And we never talked about what it was, so…”

“So… maybe you and Dan found yourselves caught in a sort of… synchronicity at a time when you both needed it. It served a purpose for you, deeper than friendship, and because you were both seeking it, it didn’t strike either of you as weird.” Spencer blinks and lets that rest between them before he continues his thought. Aaron appears to give the suggestion serious consideration. “Maybe the same thing is happening now.”

Aaron’s eyes focus on Spencer once more, intense and daunting.

“Maybe,” Spencer chokes, and has to try again, harder. “Maybe the continuum of weird that you mentioned before, is a similar… synchronicity.”

“Are you suggesting I’m having… a midlife crisis of some stripe?” Aaron sounds incredulous and offended. That’s not what Spencer wants and he rushes to overexplain the misconception.

“No. No, no… I meant… we’re both private people, and we both find ourselves… caught up in an unusual connection that we appear to want right now. Perhaps, in the stream of our locked-down lives, we’ve both come up for air at exactly the same time, needing exactly the same thing. Perhaps it _is_ weird, but we don’t see it, because we need this more than we need to seem normal to one another.” Spencer waits, wondering what Aaron will say back, but he just blinks as if Spencer’s lost him, like he loses everyone when he begins rambling. “Sorry. That made sense inside my head, I swear…”

“I understood what you said, Spencer,” Aaron murmurs.

“Oh. Okay.”

“I’m just not sure how I want to respond to it.”

“Hmmmm.” Spencer’s stomach drops dramatically and painfully, which is entirely his brain’s fault since his stomach has nowhere to go in the first place. He lies there, eyes moving back to the swirling galaxies above, and thinks that he has no right to feel disappointed. Tomorrow he becomes someone else, synchronous moment notwithstanding. At least Aaron hasn’t become offended or enraged. Or hit him. All of those were possibilities…

“Have you…” Aaron’s voice brings him back, and when Spencer turns to look at him, he seems very unsure of himself. “Ever done this with someone else? This… weird synchronicity thing?”

Spencer thinks – really thinks. “No,” he breathes in surprise. “I mean… maybe I would have if my life hadn’t taken a left turn at eighteen…” Jesus, why did he say _that?_

“What happened at eighteen?”

Shit.

“I got sick. I told you about that.”

“You said it was manageable, whatever it is.”

“It is. Now.” Christ, he absolutely cannot discuss this any further. “But it wasn’t in the beginning. Please… I don’t want to talk about it.”

Aaron looks at him closely, concerned. “Are you… dying?” he asks gently.

“No. It’s nothing like that. I’m not terminal, or contagious, or handicapped. It’s, like, a one in a billion thing. I don’t know if it’s even that because I’ve never met anyone else with the condition.”

“Then, how do you know how to treat it?” Aaron looks confused.

“Trial and error,” Spencer shrugs. “I figured it out on my own. I learned its rules, and I don’t mess with them. I’ve managed to have a life around it.”

Aaron hesitates, and Spencer realizes too late that the hesitation is his profiler’s brain doing the math on him. “Your condition is why you don’t have relationships, isn’t it?”

Spencer feels his mouth tighten to a thin, tense line and then forces his gaze back to the ceiling. He _cannot_ say anything else. He cannot give this insightful man any more to work with.

“Okay, okay…” Aaron’s voice is quiet and worried. “I’m sorry. You said you didn’t want to talk about it, so we won’t. I respect that.”

Spencer shivers and hopes it isn’t violent enough to be seen from where Aaron is lying. 

“But figuring this all out on your own…” Aaron continues after a moment. “For over a decade? That sounds… very lonely.”

Spencer rolls his eyes shut and tries to swallow back the lump that suddenly appears in his throat. He’s _not_ lonely. He has math, and mystery, and sometimes a beautiful body to move with him in the dark. He has a good job, plenty of money, and a home that’s safe. It’s a lot more than most, and it’s enough. It _has_ to be.

Aaron’s hand lands along his sleeve, forcing Spencer back into the moment and turning to look at him. He feels Aaron’s fingers glide down the fabric and then tentatively wrap around Spencer’s hand in a light grip. His mind goes blank, abdicating all sense of control and waiting to see what happens next. Aaron’s expression is a strange mix of worry and hope.

“I know that we’re strangers,” he murmurs. “And none of this makes much sense. I don’t have permission to pry. But… if there comes a time when you want to talk about things that you can’t right now, I’d listen, Spencer.”

Aaron watches as Spencer blinks in shock. If only that were a possibility…

“It’s the least I can do for someone who singlehandedly recreated one of the only pleasant memories from my youth. Dan would be jealous.” Aaron’s mouth curls in a smile and it knocks the wind out of Spencer’s chest, and then shoves it back in with a gasp. The speaker between them coos out, _‘And who knows which is which and who is who’_. Spencer tells himself he has to respond somehow – do something, say something… His hand twists in Aaron’s and grips it back, though he can’t recall deciding to do that.

“When you talked about the movie house in your town,” he gusts out. “I just thought of this place. I come here a lot. When my life doesn’t make sense, or if I feel like I’m spiraling out of control a little. It calms me down. It reminds me… I’m just a leaf in the flow of the universe, you know? It’s humbling – takes all the air out of things. Problems need perspective, I guess…”

Jesus, Spence, where did THAT come from?

But Aaron’s worry has transformed into something open and eager.

“Sorry,” Spencer feels his face heat. “My mind has a non-stop running commentary and it’s hard to keep it in check all the time…”

“That’s a tremendous coping mechanism,” Aaron grins, his fingers tightening on Spencer’s. “I can forgive your B & E in light of that. It’s sort of poetic.”

“Great. ‘The Poetic Burglar’ is gonna win me all kinds of friends in prison. I can see it now.” Spencer rolls his eyes and smiles past his blush as Aaron gently laughs. And their hands are still linked. The amusement fades, the song shifts, and Spencer finds that they’ve been staring at each other too long. “Listen,” he murmurs and it sounds enormous to his ears though it’s barely above a whisper. “If I could talk about… my problems, I would talk about them with you. I find that I… trust you. And I agree: that’s crazy because we really don’t know each other at all. Trust should be earned…”

“Usually,” Aaron breathes in surprise. “Yes.”

“Well then,” Spencer shuffles a little closer, feeling frustrated that this situation has happened at this point in his life without explanation. “What does _this_ mean? Why aren’t we wary of each other? Why don’t the rules apply this time?”

Aaron shrugs, shifting against his bent arm and making the v of his dress shirt more obvious. “Maybe we’re not meant to know. That leaf in the flow of existence thing.”

Spencer makes an unimpressed growl. The leaf thing is fine for existentialist angst, but rules run the universe. Math has shown him that much. Aaron chuckles at him and then lets it die away as he continues staring.

“Maybe the reason isn’t that profound,” he murmurs. “Maybe we’re just attracted to each other.”

And it’s as if all the oxygen whooshes out of the auditorium in an instant. Spencer chokes as he tries to make something sensible happen while Aaron stares at him. He wants to let go of Aaron’s hand, but can’t make his fingers work. He’s worried about the sudden cold sweat that’s overtaken him. Can Aaron feel it? Is he nervous too? He doesn’t look it. He’s acting like this is an obvious answer to a simple question.

“A-are we?” Spencer croaks, and Aaron finally reacts. He seems… undecided.

There’s a sudden wedge of light in the gloom, followed by a loud thud. Spencer freezes.

“Who’s there?” a voice calls out. Aaron looks directly at Spencer, equally frozen.

“Shit,” Spencer whispers as he grabs his phone, the speaker, and then Aaron’s hand. “Gotta go…”

“What-” Aaron hisses, but Spencer shushes him as he hauls him up and pushes him in the direction of an emergency exit closest to them.

“Follow me. Move fast, stay low. Be _quiet._ ”

He feels Aaron right at his heels, stowing whatever he thinks in favor of escape. They make it to the door and through to the hallway on the other side. When the door shuts, it’s almost black in there and Spencer has a sinking feeling.

“I don’t know where this goes…” he mumbles, mostly to himself.

“Who was that?” Aaron breathes.

“Security.” Spencer grabs Aaron’s hand again and begins dragging him down the hallway, his other arm out along the wall to feel his way. He runs across a door, checks it. Locked. Continues on.

“I thought you said they wouldn’t check again until two a.m.”

Spencer shrugs, irritated both at their current predicament and what it interrupted. “I miscalculated, okay? Maybe he’s new. Maybe he’s keen. I’ve been here dozens of times and this has never happened before – what can I say?”

“Remember to tell that to your defense counsel when the time comes,” Aaron grumbles, but he’s still following, still holding onto Spencer’s hand. “How do we get out?”

“I don’t…” Another door, another lock. He growls quietly. “Know…”

He hears the door at the end of the hallway open just as they reach a corner and turn it together. Another ‘who’s there?’ echoes out and they see a flashlight beam zip over the walls.

“Persistent,” Spencer whispers and then fumbles for his phone, shining his own flashlight down the corridor away from the T junction they’ve just passed. There are a half dozen doors on either side of what resembles a maintenance passage. Suddenly, Spencer’s brain orients them in the layout that lives inside his head.

“C’mon,” he yanks Aaron after him, skipping the first two doors closest to them and stopping at the third. He whips it open, knowing it won’t be locked, does a quick estimation and huffs. It’ll be tight, but they don’t have a choice. “Get in,” he whispers.

Aaron squints into the dark. “It’s a utility closet. It’s just a glorified electrical panel with a door. We won’t fit.”

“Please, Aaron, no arguing. Please.” He starts shoving Aaron through the door and, mercifully, Aaron doesn’t fight him on it. He crowds in after him, chest pressed right against chest as he struggles to close them into the space. And everything goes black, blacker than black. Aaron squirms, hissing quietly as the metal panel digs into his back. Spencer jostles, tries to avoid touching Aaron too much, but ends up stepping on his feet when he does.

“Sorry!” he whispers, and the door pops open behind him as he tries to give Aaron some space. “Shit…” He closes it again and is smooshed against Aaron from hips to shoulders. There’s no avoiding it.

“Does it lock?” Aaron’s hands land on Spencer’s arms and pull him in, perhaps trying to avoid another popped door scenario.

“I don’t think so.”

A muffled ‘come on outta there, now’ reverberates down the hallway, and Spencer tries not to panic. How will he get them out of this? How can he explain it away?

“I’m sorry,” he blurts softly, feeling his face heat in the darkness. “This was a dumb idea…”

He doesn’t want Aaron to hate him. Sure, tomorrow he’ll be out of Aaron’s life forever, but he still doesn’t want him to hate him. He’s been arrested dozens of times – it never matters once he changes and the authorities either can’t find him, or get embarrassed that they’ve lost a prisoner from lock up and appear to have mistakenly detained a stranger instead. But Aaron could be tarnished by this: a federal agent breaking into a university for who knows what purpose?

“Don’t,” Aaron breathes, his voice so close that Spencer thinks their faces might be just an inch apart.

“If he finds us, blame me. I can take it. Pretend you’re drunk, disoriented-”

“Shut up,” Aaron’s lips brush against Spencer’s cheek. “Will he check?”

Spencer’s trying not to shiver, trying not to reach out or react or panic or _anything._ He closes his eyes and focuses on Aaron’s question, the rapid beat of his pulse bumping against Spencer’s chest.

“I don’t know,” he breathes shakily. “Depends if he knows what this room is for.”

They hear the guard call out again, and then the measured footfalls of his boots as he walks towards them down the hall. Aaron grunts quietly and then shifts. One of his hands leaves Spencer’s arm and loops through it, the muscles in it tightening against Spencer’s side as a small, metal squeak sounds behind him.

“Are you…” Spencer thinks he’s just grabbed the doorknob. Aaron twists and suddenly his breath brushes Spencer’s lips.

“Maybe he won’t try hard if he thinks it’s locked,” he whispers, words felt more than heard as they skim over Spencer. He tries to clamp down on another shiver, especially since they are pressed up against one another and it’s getting warm in the tiny room with them and the industrial electrical panel humming behind them.

“I’m… I’m still sorry…” he tries again, lips brushing something warm and solid that makes a shocked sound in response.

“I said: don’t.” Aaron doesn’t really make a noise. It just brushes back across Spencer’s mouth. And Aaron’s hand on his other arm squeezes as the footsteps get closer.

And suddenly Spencer can’t think for how warm he is, shivering and overheating at the same time, their shallow breathing making their skin clammy, mouths brushing by accident as they gasp and hold, gasp and hold.

The footsteps get close and then stop. Spencer looks down and sees a flicker of light flash under the doorframe, and then glance away.

“Come out here right now,” the guard calls out, sounding less pissed off and more afraid. “Stupid kids…” The footsteps start again and thump closer. There’s the sound of a doorknob rattling.

 _Shit._ They are going to be found. This will end with an uncomfortable interrogation by campus police. He hopes Aaron throws him under the bus. He knows there’s no way to convince him that it won’t affect him, but he hopes anyway. He wants to be an odd, fun memory for him, not the stupid reason why his career ended early. The light flashes under the doorframe again, and Aaron suddenly pulls him much closer. Then Spencer reacts without thinking.

His lips bump Aaron’s and just _catch._ Instead of letting go, gasping like it’s a mistake, they linger. Then he separates, pulling in a deep breath and wondering what the hell he’s doing. He’s thankful it’s pitch black in there so he can’t see Aaron’s reaction. As soon as they get clear of the guard, Aaron’s probably going to take off like the building’s on fire. That’s _if_ they get clear of the guard.

The footfalls stop again, and the light under the door is almost white; he must be right outside. Spencer sends out a silent prayer that reality alters and they suddenly become invisible, and then he’s shocked back to the tiny room when Aaron’s mouth lands over his. His lips are solid, sure – it isn’t a mistake. His hand on Spencer’s arm clamps down almost painfully and Spencer hears the doorknob jiggle, the metal complaining as it twists but won’t budge. Aaron’s arm at Spencer’s side tenses unbelievably, but still, he keeps kissing. The doorknob makes another noisy twist, and Aaron compensates to balance it, and then the light under the door dims and moves away.

“Get out here and quit wasting my time,” the guard yells. Aaron’s hand leaves Spencer’s arm and grabs his hip, pulling him in as his lips separate and reconnect with an almost soundless gasp. Their noses bump, their teeth clack together awkwardly, and then Spencer’s body buys into the moment as his hand flashes up and anchors him to Aaron with a tight clasp of his jaw. He draws Aaron’s mouth to his forcefully and lets out a dangerous, involuntary moan when Aaron’s grip on his waist pulls him as close as he can get. He’s aroused – it’s obvious. They both are. Spencer’s brain takes a timeout to sit down and ponder this sea change. He moans into Aaron’s lips again as the security guard’s “I will find you, you know…” echoes as he gets further away from them in his search.

“Shh,” Aaron mouths before taking Spencer’s lips again until they’re almost delirious from lack of oxygen. For his part, Spencer has completely forgotten his fear of discovery, lost in the close, dark warmth of the impossible space, the eager silhouette against his hips, his chest, his mouth, and his perfectly vivid imagination. He can’t see Aaron at all. He can only feel and taste him, hear the soft slip of their mouths and the strained breath. His hand remembers what his body wanted earlier, and traces along Aaron’s shoulders until it skips across the seam of fabric and lands on heated skin. His fingertips trail until they find the dip, then press ever so slightly as they circle the hollow at the base of Aaron’s throat. Aaron’s mouth pulls back as his breath makes an odd, uneven escape from him, and his grip on Spencer’s hip becomes merciless.

“This is insane,” Spencer whispers into the hollow he’s just manhandled and Aaron hisses and arches into him so that Spencer’s tongue accidentally brushes the skin when he gasps. 

Then they hear the guard’s distant growl an instant before there’s a loud thud of a door slamming that reverberates down the hallway. It makes them both jump, and suddenly the door pops open behind Spencer and both he and Aaron freeze in place. There’s a painful thirty seconds of no breathing, no moving, no thinking that happens as they both just _listen._ But there’s no running footsteps, no barked orders, and no flashes of accusatory light in the hallway beyond. Spencer sags back with a huge sigh, the movement bumping him into the door and pushing it wider. The nearly-nothing light of the service corridor seems bright as day after the blackness of the closet, and Spencer looks up to see Aaron’s face for the first time. It’s just… messy shock, pupils wide in the gloom, mouth open trying to breathe through everything, and his hands limp at his sides, palms up as if in surrender or confusion. His shirt’s creased and askew, his suit now dirty and compromised, much like the strange expression on his face as he stares at Spencer.

Spencer swallows hard. It’s one thing… in the dark. God knows he’s lost himself that way dozens of times, imagining someone else, dreaming that he’s someone better than he is. But it’s another thing to _look_ someone in the eye. His heart is beating so rapidly that he can feel it in his temples, in his throat trying to choke him. He looks at Aaron and knows he’d love to try. He’s not suddenly ashamed or repulsed now that the anonymous silhouette has a face and a name. So, check that off the list of unknowns in his life: he could want a man. But that’s only half the equation, and Aaron seems… shellshocked.

“Uh… umm…” he coughs and clears his throat, shuffling and trying to hide behind his hair as he gestures to Aaron. “Come out of the closet.”

Aaron’s eyes just get wider and he doesn’t move.

“The electricity…” Spencer stutters painfully, trying to get his mouth to work again. “It’s dangerous…”

Aaron remains where he is and Spencer flicks his fingers towards the panel Aaron’s pressed against. “The panel…” he wheezes. Jesus, where has his brain gone?

And Aaron sort of snaps back to reality in an instant. He lurches forward and steps just outside the utility room, busying his hands with brushing dust from his jacket and straightening his shirt. Then he looks up at Spencer once more, but this time, his intent is unreadable.

“You okay?” he mumbles.

“Uh, y-yes. You?”

“I’m fine.”

Spencer nods, guts twisting. The dark is one thing, but… “You probably want to get out of here. It’s this-”

Aaron grabs Spencer’s jaw and pulls him back to his mouth. There’s nothing tentative or unsure about it. Spencer stumbles against him, and then his hands are skimming through Aaron’s hair, cupping his strong jaw and creasing that tantalizing dark shirt again.

Well.

It goes on as long as their breath lasts. When they pop apart, knuckles white where they’ve curled into each other’s clothes, and gasping like their drowning together, they’re wearing matched expressions of wonderment.

“I thought you said you’ve never done this before…”

“I haven’t. Been wanting to since the parking lot though.”

“ _Really?_ ”

“Really, Spencer.”

“But… this isn’t how it’s supposed to go. Is it? This is weird. _Isn’t it?_ ”

“I think we’re well past weird at this point. Do… do you want me to stop?”

“No! No… but, ummm… this is complicated. You don’t have any idea how much…”

“I have _some_ idea, Spencer. I’m too old, too straight, and too tied down to do this, I know…”

“That’s not what I mean.” Spencer pulls away, places a safe distance between them in the hall. “I’m not thinking about that.”

Aaron watches him carefully in the gloom, possibly seeing too much and understanding only a part of it. His arms drop in surrender again. “You mean your commitment issues, your condition…”

“Yes,” Spencer laughs without humor and wraps his arms around his ribs defensively. “Yeah, my condition will _definitely_ effect this…”

It isn’t fair. If he had more time, maybe. But then again, time is irrelevant. It comes down to identity. _Who_ is Aaron attracted to? Does it end at Spencer’s lanky loaner-body? Or does it live beyond that? _How_ could it live beyond that? They’ve only known each other for three days.

“You don’t know me,” he bites out bitterly and then mumbles a half-hearted apology when Aaron takes a step back. “I’m sorry, but you really don’t…”

There’s a horrifying silence in the corridor after that. It stretches and muffles everything, pressing down over Spencer with the crushing guilt that whispers _‘even if you weren’t cursed, you’d still do this wrong’_.

Then, “Which way is out?” Aaron’s voice is calm, monotone. Spencer can’t look at him. He just flicks his fingers towards the route the security guard took, then he starts walking. Aaron falls into step behind him silently. It continues until they reach the crisp chill of the parking lot five minutes later.

“Your car should be on the far side of the lot,” Spencer mumbles. “I took us through the quickest exit, but we’re on the other side of the building from where we entered. Just keep walking. You’ll see the gates eventually.”

He still can’t look at Aaron, but there’s a loud sigh beside him and nothing else.

“Are you hungry?” Aaron asks. Spencer turns to face him – it’s not a decision, it just happens out of surprise. Aaron raises his eyebrows. “I’m hungry.”

“What?”

“C’mon. Follow me in your car. I know a place.”

He turns and starts trooping across the frosty parking lot not waiting to see if Spencer will follow. But he does. He tells himself it’s because his car is that way as well and it’s too cold to stand around out of bruised pride, but mostly it’s because he’s confused beyond all belief. Thirty minutes later they are the only patrons in an International House of Pancakes up to their eyeballs in waffles and chocolate malts. 

“Honestly, it’s a little disgusting, but I love IHOPs,” Aaron says around a mouthful of Belgian waffle with fondness. Spencer has absolutely no idea how to react, and is amazed at the amount of waffles Aaron can eat. “I tried to keep it a secret for the longest time, but Haley figured it out when I bought a waffle iron and claimed it was for Jack. Before he had teeth.”

Aaron smiles and adds more syrup to his plate. “I make them at home for him now, but there’s something decadent about going out and having breakfast for dinner somewhere. Like you’ve turned propriety on its head for a moment.”

Spencer just keeps staring. He’s lost. He’s out of his element, and definitely out of his comfort zone. Aaron sighs and puts his fork down.

“Say something, Spencer. It’s been long enough – the shock should’ve worn off by now.” He waits. “At the very least, eat your bacon.”

“Do you…” Spencer’s voice cuts out on him and he starts again. “Do you realize you’re sitting in a restaurant at one a.m. talking about your wife and son…”

“With a strange man I made out with while running from security after we broke into a university building after hours? Yes, Spencer. Thanks for the recap, but I was there for all of that.” He takes another bite and considers Spencer while he chews. Eventually, he wipes his mouth and lays his hands flat along the worn laminate of the table top.

“Listen to me. Despite what you may think, this was a helluva evening for me. I won’t soon forget it. And I’m not upset or angry. I’m thankful.”

“T-thankful?”

“Yes. It’s like you said: problems need perspective.”

“I… I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

Aaron smiles, the way he did when they went out to lunch: indulgently.

“It’s simple really. I feel as if I’ve been quietly drowning in my life for some time now. I’ve done it stoically, because I believed it was what I deserved. And I’ve never let anyone see it because I’m ashamed. I didn’t think anyone would understand.”

Spencer is confused. What could Aaron have possibly done to think he deserved to quietly and painfully fade out of his life?

“You see?” Aaron points at him. “Even you don’t really understand what I’m talking about because I haven’t let you see it. You’ve had a glimpse here and there, as I’ve had of your problems, but we don’t _understand them_ because we don’t really know each other.”

Spencer sags in his seat, feeling rebuffed once more.

“But it’s only been three days, Spencer,” Aaron leans closer, expression changing to something earnest and enticing. “In that time, you’ve seen more than most. Guessed at even more. And yes, perhaps we have both been compelled by some sort of… need to connect. To let the secret barriers of our lives thin a little.”

Aaron leans back and takes a breath, bracing himself with his hands spread wide on the table. 

“I like you, Spencer. I like the ease I feel when I’m with you. If you have to keep some things to yourself, I understand. I have to do that too. If what happened tonight is too much, if it will not work with the life you’ve designed for yourself, I’m okay with that as well.”

“You are?” Spencer breathes. Aaron nods slowly.

“My point is, for whatever reason, we have made a connection to each other. I do not want to walk away from that. I would like to be your friend, if you’ll let me, and, in time, perhaps we’ll see our own problems in a wider perspective, and let each other in to help with them. It’s a distinct possibility. Look at how far we’ve come in just three days?”

Aaron glances away for a moment and then quickly glances back, looking nervous for the first time in this conversation.

“I would very much like to see you again. After tonight. In any way that makes you comfortable. May I do that?”

Spencer chokes down how the flattery has made him too full, too warm. Jesus, this _so_ isn’t fair…

“You’re very attractive, you know…” he murmurs, his fatalistic lizard brain telling him there’s still time to have his way with Aaron like he’s had with so many before him. It wouldn’t be that difficult to convince him now, before he disappears. And if Aaron accepts, it proves all of this was surface tension, just lonely sexual frustration and nothing more.

Aaron smiles gently. “You’re very attractive too. But I’d rather get to know you though, get inside your head…”

And everything in Spencer just stops. _I want that too…_

This will have to be enough for him; this suggestion that Aaron wants to know what lies beneath his skin more than the skin itself. It’s something that’s never been offered before, and for a blinding, brilliant second, Spencer feels seen for the first time in eleven years. But it won’t change anything. He’s already exhausted, feeling the extremes of this face’s three-day lifespan pulling him down, telling him to sleep.

Instead, he decides to give this day the ending that they both want: a promise to meet again. It doesn’t matter if it’s a lie. Aaron can be disappointed later. Spencer can be numb when he wakes up with new eyes tomorrow. Tonight they can both be happy that they found each other.

Spencer pulls out his best smirk and goes to work. “Getting inside my head has got to be the worst profiler come-on I’ve ever heard.”

Aaron grins, suddenly delighted. Then his face melts into a forced scowl. “How many profilers have come onto you exactly?”

“Oh, only all of the ones I invite to break into buildings with me. It’s a select group.”

“I knew it,” Aaron sighs mournfully at his waffles, as if they’ll sympathize. “I’m just a fetish.”

Spencer chuckles, his cheeks heating as Aaron looks up, mock-scowl abandoned and hope firmly rooted in its place. He laughs too, and it continues well past what the joke deserves. Then Spencer picks up his fork and digs into his breakfast-for-dinner while Aaron watches.

They talk about less important things: memories from their pasts that are safe, or funny, to help the necessary fleshing-out that a new friendship demands. Spencer disconnects from the side of his brain that questions why he’s doing this; he’s just enjoying Aaron’s stories about his long line of awful college roommates and an unfortunate instance with a camp stove that almost killed him in his first apartment. Spencer tells him about the six months he and his Mom spoke nothing but Middle English around the house when he was ten, and then recounts all the dirty jokes he knows from Chaucer, beaming when Aaron laughs so hard he almost chokes on his milkshake. Spencer can’t help thinking that if he were a normal guy, he’d probably look back on tonight as the moment when he lost himself to Aaron. He shoves the thought away and makes himself swear that he’ll never regret this. Never.

When the sky turns from indigo to purple, and Spencer feels like he’s drifting in the banquette that’s become too comfortable, Aaron pulls them up and out into the cold night once more. They stand in the parking lot looking up at the few stars bright enough to be seen past D.C.’s light pollution and the manic glow from the IHOP behind them. They’re standing close enough that their sleeves brush, breath floating up to be lost in the darkness overhead.

“This was fun,” Aaron says quietly, and when Spencer glances at him, he’s smiling as he stares at the sky.

“It was,” Spencer chokes back, adamant that he won’t think beyond those two words in this moment and ruin everything. Aaron turns to face him, still smiling warmly.

“So, we’ll do it again?” he asks, raising his eyebrows as if he’s not certain. “Maybe without the illegalities next time…”

“I make no promises,” Spencer chuckles and then gets serious. “But yes, I’d love to do it again some time.”

“Good,” Aaron grins and it changes everything about him with its unrestrained delight. Spencer’s heart stutters awkwardly in his chest. _Oh._ “I’ll call you.”

Aaron hesitates for a moment, his expression warm but also confused, and then he steps closer and pulls Spencer against him for a hug that momentarily banishes the November chill. Spencer’s arms wrap around him in his dusty suit, fingers spread wide and solid, holding him as close as he dares for just one more moment. He breathes in the smell of him, and the buttery hint the IHOP has left on his clothes, and he wonders how long they can hold onto each other in the parking lot without anyone noticing. He wonders who will pull away first.

It turns out it’s Aaron. He backs away, but the grin is still there as he fishes his car keys from his pocket. “Okay then. Talk soon.”

Spencer watches him get into his SUV and then drive away, waving like the hopeless weirdo he’s always been and no longer wants to hide from _this one person._ Then he turns his face back towards the stars and lets the chill sink into his body until he’s shivering so much that his eyes can no longer focus. He breathes expansively, letting some of the joy/excitement/trepidation/despair loose into the night in a cloud of condensation. He’ll never be free of those things, but he bleeds off a little of their terrible energy here, because of Aaron.

He closes his eyes and begs the universe: “Aaron, please don’t regret me.” Then he climbs into Margot and heads home for a deep, dreamless sleep that pulls him down almost as soon as he’s inside. There’s a moment before he passes out, when his head sinks into the pillow and he has a crazy spike of hope. He feels _different_ tonight. Fundamentally. He has a fleeting thought that something about him has changed – maybe he won’t wake up as someone else. Maybe _this_ is how this nightmare ends.

But in the morning when he stumbles into his bathroom, a seventy-year-old Cuban woman stares back at him from the mirror and that hope plummets so hard that he’s amazed it doesn’t leave a dent somewhere. And then the anger comes, hot and violent, searing him with tears and self-loathing that he _ever_ thought he could get free of this. He holds onto the sink with arthritic hands and gasps through it, shaking and shaking and shaking, waiting for the numbness to take him away from all this _feeling_ again. His face is wet but he doesn’t care. He wants to reach for something to ease him – thinks of Aaron’s hand on his – and then pushes away any idea of comfort. 

He knows how to do this; he understands the rules. When he finally looks up into the rheumy eyes that stare back at him, he’s got a grip on his universe once more. You never look back. There’s only going forward, the next face, the next chance to reinvent yourself. There’s only the possibility of the unknown that’s coming towards him in time. He can’t change anything he’s already done – time doesn’t work that way. It has rules just like math. And he wouldn’t change a damned thing about the last three days anyway. Not a thing. But it’s in the past, and he has to walk away from it.

So, he hobbles out of his bathroom in an effort to move on. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t leave his house for days, or that he can’t be bothered to get dressed. It’s not depression, he insists, merely that his current face is frail and unsuitable, and he’s just waiting it out for a more appropriate selection. The fact that the same thing happens with the face after that one, and the next, and the next, doesn’t shake his believe that _he’s just fine._

He’s not lonely. He’s got this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Georgetown University does have a space telescope, but the star chart room is fictitious (loosely based on a planetarium in my hometown, and yes, they had Laser Floyd shows back in the 80s and and they were _awesome_ by 1987 standards). I have never been to Georgetown and have made the details up.
> 
> This chapter quotes lyrics from Pink Floyd's "Us and Them".


	7. Days 4,055-4,084

Christmas is coming. It’s never meant much to him. He’s not religious and after his Dad left when he was young, his Mom started losing time so dramatically that things like established holidays fell by the wayside. One time they were out buying groceries and she asked him if he saw the Santa Claus on the corner collecting money for charity. He said he did and she immediately spiraled into paranoia because she was convinced it was April and that he shouldn’t be there. He’s always thought that you can’t miss what you’ve never experienced, and his feelings about Christmas fall neatly under that umbrella. It’s a holiday for families, people with a web of connections that they wish to pull close and renew again. He has no family, no friends, no partner who demands such a renewal, so he generally ignores it. Sometimes he puts up lights – just to feel like everyone else – and he enjoys the seasonal music for their platitudes of peace and universal understanding. Wouldn’t that be nice if it were true? But he never has a tree (no gifts to put under it) and he never takes holidays, always filling time for other faceless NSA agents who _do_ have families and want to see them. His boss, a man he’s met exactly once in eleven years but who nevertheless he considers the closest thing he has to a friend, always reminds him when the year is ending. So long as Jeff’s around, he’ll never make the same mistake as his mother. On a colder than usual morning, he wanders from his kitchen to his office, coffee in hand, and sees a message from Jeff blinking onscreen.

_Hey, Weirdo. It’s Magic Burglar season again. Can I book you for coverage, or have you finally decided to masquerade as a human being? Let me know._

He giggles. Today he’s a short, round woman in her thirties and is prone to musical giggling. Every time he does it, he whips his head around to see who’s in his house laughing at him. It’s a little aggravating. He sighs and sits down in front of his bank of screens.

_Is ‘Weirdo’ an HR infraction? Can I get psychological damage pay for your assumptions about my private life?_

He waits, lips curled in a small smile.

_Are you worried about money, Weirdo? Because I can have a Brinks truck roll up to your back door in an hour. If you tell me where you live. The Agency wants to be your Sugar Daddy in perpetuity. You know that._

Spencer giggles again. Whips his head around. Dammit…

_Don’t be coy. You probably know what I had for breakfast this morning, Jeff._

_Nope, I don’t. I respect your privacy. You and my cat are the only people whose rights I don’t trample. So, can I book you over the holidays, or what?_

_Yeah. I’ll do whatever coverage you need. No plans._

_Dude, that’s sad. Go out and get a girl for a few weeks. Single women are all half mad around the holidays. They want to snuggle and shit. It usually passes by January 3rd. You just have to act sappy for about 10 days. I’m sure you can handle that for the sake of getting some._

_Jeff, you are DEEP in the HR infraction bog now…_

_Or get a blow-up doll. Dress her up in an ugly sweater and tinsel, make hot chocolate for her. You can deflate her if she displeases you. Perfect. I’m gonna send you one… I’m on Amazon right now… I’ll send some lube along with her._

_You are disgusting. Truly._

_Hey, I’m a ROMANTIC, asshole… just ask my ex-wives._

Spencer laughs – this time a real, non-annoying one.

_No dolls, Jeff. I appreciate the sentiment, but I prefer my bedmates to be less… vulcanized._

_Well, sending a LIVE woman to your house for some seasonal lovin’ is sorta a felony, so… maybe you should go OUTSIDE??? You know… to where people are?_

Spencer’s brain burps that this concept worked great the last time. And also disastrously. He shakes his head hard to push the half-realized thought away, down with all the rest he refuses to look at. Everything’s just become manageable again – he got dressed this morning and everything.

_Meeting people is overrated, Jeff. And exhausting. Take you, for example. I like you just fine and think that would pretty much evaporate if we spent any real time together._

_I, uh, resemble that comment? You’re right, of course – I’m terrible in real life. Online I’m fucking BATMAN though. But that doesn’t mean that you might not be awesome in the real world, Spencer. I worry about you, dude._

_Don’t worry about me. I’m okay. Really._

_The more you assert that shit, the less I buy it. You know that, right?_

_Yes. I’m annoyingly familiar with you._

_Man, just go out there and find a girl. It doesn’t have to be perfect, and it certainly won’t be forever. But we all need it._

_Need what?_

_Oh… TALKING. KISSING. LAUGHING. ORGASMS. HUMAN FUCKING CONTACT, BRO. It’s, like, people-fuel._

He sits back from the screen, amusement fading. Is that what all of this really comes down to? Is it… just snatches of happiness plucked from a fast-moving stream in the dark? Was that all _Aaron_ really was? The thought makes a line down the center of his chest ache, like he was broken there once and then sewn back together imperfectly. He wonders if his isolation is magnifying things again. That happens; he works himself into an anxious frenzy over something that doesn’t merit it. Affect heuristics messing him up. And he hasn’t left the house, aside from runs to the grocery store, in weeks…

_Okay, listen. I’ll go outside today. I’ll talk to people. Pet strange dogs… the whole bit. You can task a satellite to monitor me if that makes you feel better. Just STOP with the blow-up dolls, alright?_

_Deal, Weirdo. Go work that sad-sackness and get yerself laid._

_There’s more to life than sex, Jeff._

_No there isn’t. Just ask my ex-wives. TTYL, bro. I’ll send the revised schedule later this week._

Spencer sits and slurps his coffee, considering not only what Jeff said, but also that of all the people on the planet who might become his sole friend, Jeff is probably a spectacularly bad choice. He giggles again - _dammit!_ \- and gets on with his day.

 

He sort of lies to Jeff; he doesn’t make it out of his house that day. But when his face changes to something less giggly, he does. Christmas is now just a week away, and it feels as if the whole city is flushed with happiness and generosity of spirit. It’s pleasant, even if it never holds. People are terrible at sustaining good will, after all. 

He finds himself in the café again, though he can’t recall deciding to go there. When he steps inside, he knows he’s made a mistake. His eyes flick hungrily over the patrons looking for one, specific face. It ruins what he’s trying to achieve (be HAPPY! be NORMAL!), and it’s also pointless. It’s been weeks – Aaron will have given up on him by now. As he should.

Something stubborn in him makes him stay, buy a coffee, and choose a single seat at the bar along the window facing the street. He won’t meet anyone like this, but at least he’s keeping his promise. He’s out in the world, experiencing the seasonal cheer, the lights, the hurried, happy crowds buying and laughing and living around him. And it even starts to gently snow, like something out of a black and white movie.

“Sometimes it’s nice, isn’t it?” He glances and sees her reflection in the glass beside him. She’s looking out at the rushing sidewalk as well, while flicking her eyes quickly to his profile and then away again. He turns a little – not an invitation, but not ignoring her either.

“Sorry?”

“It’s nice,” she looks at him directly. Pretty brunette, early forties, startling eyes, conscious that she’s still attractive though no longer an ingenue. “When all the Christmas buzz slows down a little. Everyone moving around you so quickly while you wait and take it all in… it’s its own kind of peace, isn’t it?”

“I suppose.” She’s right: it is peaceful. But he’s not in the mood for this. Her eyes are flicking all over his face. Today he’s older – what some might call a ‘silver fox’ – fit and capable-looking, if not conventionally handsome. And maybe he looks sad as well, signaling his need to be ‘fixed’ and unexpectedly drawing others to him in this time of happiness. Jeff did warn him that sadness could attract people…

“Umm,” she smiles and bites her lip, wanting him to look at them. He does. It’s expected. “May I sit?”

He gestures to the empty stool next to him but turns back to the window and leans hard on his elbows, telling her with his body that he’s not inviting her to talk. Just being polite. But she keeps trying.

“Of course,” she says softly after a moment of silent staring. “This time of year is also naturally exhausting.”

“Not if you have people,” he mumbles, still watching the crowds pass by. Men with their collars turned up, women laid down with bags and talking, pink-cheeked into their phones, children running and trying to slide in the light snow… “None of this is exhausting if you’re doing it for those you love.”

A glimpse of Aaron, looking up at a colored, moving ceiling, flickers before his eyes, as if in the crowd beyond, and then disappears. Spencer freezes, waiting for the pain of that random synapse-firing to pass. 

“You’re right,” the brunette murmurs, and when he looks at her reflection, he finds she’s just a little closer than she was a moment ago. “It is a holiday about love.” She waits another minute. He hopes she won’t press, but it’s just not his day. “So, which one are you? Exhausted participant, or thoughtful outsider?”

He turns to her again. She really is beautiful, and her smile is inviting in _just_ the right way. She knows herself, knows what she’s doing with every action she takes. A part of him whispers _‘Why not? Don’t you want to feel wanted? What else could you hope for?’_. But a much louder, newer part of him shuts the door on that possibility without flinching. He sighs.

“I apologize – I don’t mean to be rude, but… I’m not really interested in conversation today. I just came here for the coffee.”

Her smile stays in place despite his refusal, and she rolls it into a convincing shrug and acceptance that a younger woman wouldn’t have been able to pull off. She probably would’ve been fun to get to know, he thinks fleetingly.

“Of course. Sorry to disturb you.”

“No apology necessary.”

She remains on the stool next to him but doesn’t make eye contact. It should be fine, but it really isn’t. She’s a stranger but he can’t turn on pretending that she doesn’t exist when she’s right beside him. Five minutes into this forced blindness and he’s grinding his teeth at how much he’s failing at something so simple, and then he can’t take it anymore. He lurches away from the window seat, mumbling _‘Excuse me’_ as he backs away towards the door. Behind him, he hears her call out a gentle _‘Merry Christmas’_ , and that just kicks his self-loathing into high gear. 

He can’t do this anymore – these random, temporary moments with strangers. It won’t ever be enough. He can’t even do it to calm the panic seeping through him that he’ll be like this forever. And how long is that? _Can_ he die, or will he just transfer from body to body as ages pass and time becomes meaningless? It’s been eleven years, and he’s run out of ways to ignore how empty he is. He can’t fix this and he also can’t stand it anymore. 

Venturing out was a mistake. While he was in his home, he could push the world away, not be reminded that he’s standing still as everything lives and dies – breathes – around him. He was fine before. He didn’t really understand what he was missing. There was always a new face to anticipate, a new adventure to look towards. Now, all he wants is to go backwards. To _him._

Then he breaks his promise and regrets meeting Aaron. It’s taken less than a month. How long did it take Aaron?

He trudges through the snow that should make him nostalgic. He walks until he’s numb – that’s his go-to solution for everything now. When he finally makes it home, he decides to continue the trend, fetching a bottle of something expensively poisonous that Jeff sent him ages ago from his kitchen. Lagavulin. Whatever. It’s alcohol, that’s all he cares about. He turns on the lights he put up in a fit of normality, turns on the stereo to something festive, and sinks down into the massive sectional that welcomes him and his misery with open arms. It’s nearly Christmas and he’s broken, finally. It’s time to take up drinking.

He puts away a third of the bottle before he fires up his laptop and starts the video program.

“Sooooooo,” he slurs and tries to smile. “This is me today. And I’m drinking. See?” He waves the bottle in front of the camera. “It’s almost Christmas, and I feel like… Charlie Brown with the football. Wait… was it Charlie who kept missing the football? Did that happen in the one with the sad little tree? Mebbe I’m the sad tree. But with no Linus and no Snoopy… anyway, I keep missing the ball. I wanna scream at the ball, and the person who keeps stealing it. But I dunno who’s stealing it…”

He hiccups and sags back into his couch, sliding half out of the video frame.

“There was a woman today. A beeeaaautiful woman. Really. I shoulda done it. Shoulda given m’self away again, but… it’s, like, what’s the fucking _point_ , ya know? What’s THE POINT?” He yells it and it echoes back to him. None of the echoes have an answer. He fades into his muddled mind for a while, forgets the video is still recording. Then his brain inflicts a passive cruelty: Aaron’s hand on his as they pass his cell phone between them in the street.

“I wanna go back to him…” he mumbles wetly. “I told m’self… said I regretted meeting him today, but I don’t. I just… wanna go _back._ Wanna know… did he see me?” He lurches forward, spills his drink, apologizes to the glass, and then glares at the video window. “Aaron, did you _see_ me? Told myself I didn’t need to know that, but… I do. Could you see me again? If I showed up with this face, would any of me stand out to you? If I could go back… jesus… I’d do anything to be the way you saw me again. The way you _smiled_ …”

And suddenly, his mind is filled with a perfect recreation of that smile. His stomach churns, heaves experimentally, settles for a moment, and then tells him that it’s not going to behave. He _just_ makes it to the bathroom in time, and then empties out the scotch and coffee and misery and complete lack of food. 

When he returns to the sofa, shaky and morose, he sees the video light blinking blurrily and makes a mental note to erase this recording in the morning.

“That’s enough,” he hushes and shuts down everything. “Merry fucking Christmas, Spence.”

He lies out along the couch and waits for unconsciousness to claim him, his head already beginning to throb with the hangover he’ll regret in a few hours’ time. His eyes cast around, landing on the mercilessly cheerful Christmas lights and then away. Then they land on his phone – the one he never answers. Its screen is pulsing gently, signaling that he has unheard messages. He can’t remember the last time he cleared the voicemail out. He fumbles for it and dials his inbox. There are forty-nine messages. About thirty-five of them are the expected ones: “Had a great time-” skip, “Where did you go-” skip, “I don’t know where you get off treating me-” skip… He erases them without feeling. Another ten are autodialers that didn’t hang up, wrong numbers, and random cold calls. He deletes those as well. And then there are four that devastate him.

It begins with Aaron’s voice, busy but still inviting, and with a ton of background noise.

_Hey, it’s Aaron. Wondering what your week looks like. It’s my turn to plan something, so let me know when you’re free. By the way, I’ve been on a Pink Floyd kick since Saturday night and now everyone at work knows just how old I am. It’s all your fault._

He laughs and hangs up. Spencer can’t breathe and his hands are shaking as if he’s sobering up already. The next message autoplays:

_It’s Aaron again. Sorry – I know I asked you for your schedule, but we just caught a case in Denver and I’m on my way to the airport now. This is how it works, I’m afraid. I don’t know how long I’ll be out of town, but I’ll call you when I get back and we can reschedule then. Once again, I’m sorry. Talk soon._

That time he sounded tired, serious – the version of himself that he’s hinted at. The third message is timestamped eight days later.

_Hi, it’s me. Ummm, Aaron. I’m back from Denver. I got back two days ago, actually. I’ve tried calling a few times but you never answer, and you haven’t tried calling me… I apologize if I sounded abrupt or dismissive before – I didn’t mean to. It had nothing to do with you. I just get that way on a case and…_

He sighs heavily into the phone, and there’s muted chatting in the background. When he speaks again, his voice is quieter, as if he’s closer to the phone.

_I’d like to meet up again. If you’re still interested, let me know. I hope you’re still interested…_

He hangs up without a goodbye, and Spencer’s hands are shaking so badly he has to put the phone down next to him on the sofa. The final message plays. It’s stamped seven days after the third one. There’s a long pause before he begins speaking and the background is absolutely silent, like he’s alone.

_It’s me._

Another long pause.

_I guess I was mistaken about what happened._

Another pause followed by a quick huff.

_I won’t bother you anymore._

By the time the automated voice declares that he has no further messages, Spencer is curled painfully into the cushions beneath him, muffling his savage, frustrated moan with everything he has. It’s just a wet, senseless noise ripped from the guts of him, and he feels sick afterwards, lightheaded and nauseated, spit outlining where he’s pressed his mouth into the fabric. 

He just whimpers as the service prompts him: “Press 7 to delete, or 9 to save this message…”

He shouldn’t have listened to them. Aaron’s last message is from two weeks ago – he’s given up. He probably thinks Spencer’s an ass, or confused, too scared to follow-up with a man who’s clearly interested in more. Maybe Aaron thinks Spencer’s ashamed of their time together. Maybe he’s already moved to regret too. Maybe he hates him.

“Aaron…”

He can’t handle that the one person he’s connected with in over a decade might loathe him. Even if he could summon the courage to find Aaron now, and explain it all, it’s too late: he’s still a coward for letting Aaron think that the silence was his fault.

He throws the phone across the coffee table until it bounces and clatters to the floor beyond it. Then he wrestles himself forward and grabs the Lagavulin bottle again. He’ll push through until, if he’s lucky, he hits a blackout. He doesn’t want to remember anything about this fucking day anymore.

 

He makes it through Christmas and beyond. He’s working constantly, asking Jeff for so many shifts that the guy FedExs him a blow-up doll with a note around its neck that reads ‘Love & Sloppy Kisses, Your Boss’. Spencer ships it back to him – directly to his office – with an HR infraction form printed and neatly filled out with all his inappropriateness enumerated in tight handwriting. At the bottom he leaves a Post-It note: ‘Next time, I’ll send it to one of your ex-wives, Jeffrey’. This prompts a lively online exchange in which Jeff dares him to do it just to get the sputtering cease-and-desist letters from their various lawyers. He’s a truly awful friend.

Spencer is racing towards New Year’s Eve when he looks up and realizes that he simply can’t face doing another search engine backtrace or stripping the headers from some douchebag’s emails and tunneling down into his ignorant, maladjusted online associations looking for dirt that, nine times out of ten, doesn’t exist. He needs caffeine – some he didn’t make himself – and fresh air, and to stretch his legs.

It’s cold and damp and grey outside in a way that’s more like fall than winter, but it’s all D.C. can muster. Nothing about the day invites a long walk full of ruminations, but that’s exactly what he does anyway, wind whipping his skirt around his legs and making him wonder why women bother with them at all when they are so damned drafty. Today he’s a mousy-looking twentysomething with a forgettable face and stooped demeanor that he finds oddly familiar. Perhaps if he’d been born a girl, he would’ve grown up into _this._ God knows that as a child he might have been mistaken for this face’s twin. 

He hasn’t thought about his true face – the one he was born with – for a long time. It was unremarkable – average height, average weight, non-descript brown hair and eyes – everything about him screamed _bland, invisible._ His Mom always said that his outsides were like that to make up for how extraordinary his insides were, as if there was an unspoken allotment of greatness given to a person that needed to be balanced between body and mind. And sure, he loves his mind, loves what it’s capable of, but facing the rejection of his physical self, time and again, was more brutal than he thought a child should have to understand. And it wasn’t just bullies, or girls in school; it was his own father, every P.E. teacher he ever had, every man who looked him over upon meeting him and silently ranked himself _above_ an embodiment of mediocrity. How often had he just wished to disappear? Or to suddenly seem as impressive on his surface as he was inside, and rub it in everyone’s face? How many hours had he lost in childish daydreams of glorious, prodigal resurrection?

And then one day it happened – he woke up as someone else – but it ended up damaging him far more than verbal abuse, bullies’ fists, or social ostracism ever could. Being someone else didn’t help at all. It was just a horrifying gauntlet of vicissitudes in its own right. He’s learned that _everyone_ has problems, _every_ face has flaws no matter how perfect they appear at first glance. After a decade of change, he’d give almost anything to be that bland nobody once more. To just _stay_ , and deal with the vagaries that life flings at you. At least they’d be a specific, narrow vein of vagaries, tailored to him as an individual, rather than the multiplicity of every imaginable person in existence. And maybe he’d be lucky enough to find someone who wanted to face those vagaries _with_ him. Plain as he’d been, that had been a possibility once. Now it wasn’t. There wasn’t enough understanding in the world to love someone who’s constantly changing. His Mom was wrong: the outsides are all that really matter.

It starts to rain. He looks up into the slate clouds and smiles a little: it’s fitting to his mood. He doesn’t have an umbrella, so he just lets the drizzle wash over him in his drafty skirt and too-thin coat, limp hair eventually plastered against his face. He’d honestly hoped that the walk would boost his serotonin, but it seems the weather and his morbid self-hatred have other ideas.

“You are spectacularly broken, Spence,” he whispers to himself, up towards the sky with his sad smile.

The rain is warmer than expected, but the chill sinks into him and he’s shivering in no time. He hustles through the streets on autopilot, peering up into the drizzle occasionally to gauge where he is. He peeks at his blurry reflection in windows as he passes them by, out of habit and dark amusement at how he always finds that mildly alarming, and then something past his soggy reflection catches his attention. A smudge of sharp-edged darkness in the warm glow beyond the streaked window pane. He focuses his gaze as he tells himself it’s not real, but it is. His eyes flick up, around in confusion, and land on the sign by the doorway – it’s the café. He’s unconsciously brought himself here again. Then he glares back through the window to the shock of the patrons sitting in the window seats and staring out.

Aaron.

Dressed in a suit that’s mortician-serious and just as out of place as the day they first met, face lined and shadowed as he glances around the small shop not really taking anything in. What is he _doing_ here? It’s the middle of a weekday…

Suddenly Spencer is inside. He only realizes it when his fingers and cheeks begin tingling from the warmth. The place is rammed with people still marinating in the glow of midwinter cheer – there are almost no free seats. In an echo that Spencer refuses to chalk up to fate, the chair across from Aaron is empty. He stumbles towards it, checks himself, and realizes that not only is he a stranger, female, and bedraggled, but he’s also toting around a to-go cup from another establishment. He quickly trashes the evidence that he’s not there for coffee, and walks to the scowling, grim face no one wants to share a table with. Spencer stops at the edge of the chair and waits for Aaron to look at him. It’s painful, even more so when Aaron finally does it and gives him the glazed politeness of one stranger to another.

“Hello,” Aaron mumbles above the din of the café when Spencer doesn’t do anything but stare.

 _Jesus._ He grips the back of the chair until his knuckles turn white.

“May I…” he chokes. “Is this seat taken?”

Aaron looks tired – so tired. When he hears the question, his expression closes off like a door shutting. “I’m waiting for someone,” he says quickly and dismisses Spencer’s body by looking elsewhere.

It feels like Spencer’s heart cracks in his chest, sputtering into uselessness and aching where the fissure widens spilling everything he is all over the place. “Oh,” he gasps quietly and pulls his hand away from the chair. He’s been found wanting again, in this average, forgettable body. He doesn’t know what to do now – he can’t keep standing there but he doesn’t want to walk away either. He looks at his shoes, soaked and squeaky as he shifts his weight in them. His toes are starting to tingle too. How long had he been walking out there, happy to be miserable? Now he’s in a new kind of misery that makes the old one look favorable. Who says things can’t get worse? He hears a sigh and looks up.

“But they’re not coming,” Aaron gestures to the seat across from him. “You might as well take it.”

Spencer blinks stupidly for an instant and then fumbles with the chair, scraping it loudly across the tile floor before sinking into it with an ungainly, wet squeak. He can’t breathe – he’s trying hard but it just isn’t happening – and he’s still staring at Aaron who, to his credit, is holding that stare without obvious judgement.

“Miss, are you all right?” he says after an awkward stretch of nothing, concern making the corners of his eyes crinkle. “You look like you might need some help.”

And then, unhelpfully, Spencer just loses it, laughing like an escaped mental patient. He can’t stop – it’s terrible. Basically, he’s always been like this, which is why he had to take the psych courses. But none of his skills or practice means a thing now as he sits across from the person he wished could’ve known him, as he is. The brainy social pariah who feels too much, too inappropriately to everything around him… _Did he need help? Oh, Aaron, yes I do, but it’s not as if I can ask…_ He has to make something up, before Aaron’s look of concern becomes professional action on his part.

“I’m… I’m sorry. I’m not a crazy person, I swear.” Don’t just _say_ that; explain it, genius… “I… I just broke up with someone.”

There. Aaron’s eyes change. There’s a softness there now that’s probably pity.

“I went for a walk,” Spencer continues. “I didn’t realize it was raining until I was soaked through. Silly.”

“Not at all. Dissociation is normal after a traumatic event,” Aaron rumbles, then stops himself and spreads his hands on the table as if he needs the stability to begin again. “I mean, I’m sorry to hear that, and you don’t appear crazy.” 

“Oh… well, thank you.”

Aaron waves the thanks away. “Would you care for a coffee? You don’t seem to have one and I’m sure you could use it.”

“Uh…” Spencer feels the familiar temptation curl through him: try to be with him _as this person._ You’ve done it before…

Aaron leans away from the table and looks as if he’s mentally pulling back as well as physically. “I’m not trying to solicit your attention,” he mumbles. “There’s no strings. Just coffee.”

“That’s kind,” Spencer sighs, realizing that Aaron is only negotiating with his body: worried for a girl in distress and wary of anything that could be seen as overtly inappropriate. He doesn’t _see_ anything of Spencer across from him. He doesn’t _feel_ that connection from before. Only Spencer carries any of that now. “But I think I just need to sit and collect myself a little.”

He watches Aaron as his eyes quickly graze the café. He does it almost every thirty seconds, and Spencer thinks that he’s only half aware that he’s doing it.

“Besides,” Spencer murmurs, bringing Aaron’s eyes back to his. “How would your companion feel when they show up and find me sitting here having coffee with you?”

Aaron hesitates and then gives Spencer the saddest smile he’s ever seen. “That’s considerate of you, but I told you: they’re not coming.” He pushes away from the table and gets up to leave. “Think about having something warm before you head back out in that, Miss. You wouldn’t want to get sick.”

Aaron nods a farewell and walks past Spencer’s chair, shuffling into his overcoat as he goes.

“How do you know?” Spencer blurts, and Aaron turns and gives him a confused look. “How do you know your friend isn’t coming?”

Aaron pauses, his eyes getting distant for a moment before coming back. “I know because he never shows up.” Aaron huffs and then gives Spencer that heartbreaking smile. “Try the latte – I hear it’s excellent. And have a better day, Miss.”

He flips up the collar of his overcoat around his ears and strides out into the gloaming. Spencer just blinks, paralyzed by a single sentence: _I know because he never shows up._

 _He._ Aaron was waiting for a man. In a place where they first met. Who else could it be?

Aaron was waiting for Spencer.

 _He never shows up._ Never, meaning Aaron has waited more than once. How many times has Aaron come to this place and waited, hoping that Spencer would just walk in? Why is he still doing it after all the time and silence that’s passed? Why isn’t Aaron angry? Why doesn’t he loathe him? Why does he want to see him again so badly that he would do this?? 

Spencer’s mind spins as he stares at the door that he’s just watched Aaron walk through and disappear into the crowd.

“Aaron… why?” he whispers.

Then a madness grabs him pushing him up out of his chair with a loud, rubbery squeak, and prompting him to dash out into the freezing downpour again. Any drying effects from the café get obliterated instantly as he twists around on the sidewalk outside the shop and peers into the foggy gloom.

“Aaron!” he yells. People in the street look at him from under their umbrellas as he calls out the name again and again with increasing desperation. He must seem pitiful: a wrung-out, young woman plaintively calling out a man’s name in public, where she’s clearly been abandoned. Despite the lingering Christmas cheer, no one steps forward to help or ask if he’s okay; it’s not their business – it’s just someone else’s heartbreak.

Aaron is gone, and yet, he isn’t. He _waits_ for Spencer – beyond hope or what his intelligence no doubt tells him about a far-too-brief connection. He waits for him here, and Spencer’s mind won’t ignore that because he’s waiting for Aaron as well. He’s been waiting since the morning he woke up as a Cuban grandmother. Waiting for something to tell him this was different, not a feeling that he enlarged in his memory beyond reason. It’s not a passing flutter. 

Well, he’s _done_ with waiting.

His mousy, soaked body helps him flag down a cab and he’s home before he can decide if his plan is wise or not. He hasn’t seriously hacked anything in years, but the skills haven’t gone rusty. Despite government firewalls, intrusion programs, and some surprisingly impressive digital keeps around the Behavioral Analysis servers, it takes him less than an hour to learn almost everything there is to know about the details of Aaron Hotchner, LLB, JD, BSc, Supervisory Special Agent of the FBI’s prestigious criminal profiling unit. His high school and college transcripts, his clerking recommendations, letters of review from his Federal Prosecutor’s Office days, his Bureau reviews, reports, and OPR findings, his health records, his startling stint with U.S. Army Intelligence, his special weapons training… 

He reads it all and what it fleshes out is a man he’s never met. Aaron Hotchner is an intelligent, ambitious, dangerous, strategic leader of others with enviable confidence and a track record of excellence in everything he attempts. Nothing in this data dump shows him as the lonely, battered man with the warmth and gentle humor that Spencer’s witnessed. What if that man – the one touched by being shown a slide show of stars – isn’t real and the dangerous, ruthless one is? Because the on-paper Aaron wouldn’t understand a man who changes faces every three days. He’d lock him up, or worse.

“This is a terrible idea.” Spencer shakes as his stomach riots against the conflict between his mind and the rest of him. But it doesn’t matter – he’s decided. He can, and probably will, question the choice over the next few days as he waits for the right moment, but he’s doing it.

He’s going to find Aaron again.


	8. Thursday, January 11 - Wednesday, January 24

**Thursday, January 11**

It doesn’t matter that the weather is awful, the crowds are out anyway. Aaron shuffles inside his overcoat and inwardly chafes that his team has been called in by DCPD but is made to wait on the periphery just inside the crime scene tape for the whole world to see. As soon as they are given access to the scene, he’s going to have some quiet, choice words for the detective in charge; the BAU is not a show pony to be trotted out for the benefit of the media.

“Christ, how long are they going to make us wait?” Prentiss murmurs beside him, equally pissed off and equally stonefaced about it so the media gets nothing out of it. “We’ve been here forty-five minutes and all we’ve seen are the looky-loos.”

She glances over his shoulder, squints, and then looks back at the profusion of DCPD squad cars parked just outside the yellow tape.

“Should be any minute now,” he mumbles. “We’ve served our PR purpose. Every media outlet knows that the FBI is on the job. No one will editorialize that Metro PD isn’t taking a series of homeless deaths seriously now…”

“And you’re okay with being used like that?” Prentiss huddles closer and gives him a sharp glance. “They would’ve been happy to let this slide if that exposé in The Post hadn’t come out last week. You know how the rank-and-file have always viewed homeless deaths: fuck it, drive on…”

Aaron gives Prentiss a sly smile. “Of course, I’m not okay with it, Emily. But it gives us leverage we didn’t have before. After they’ve flaunted our involvement to the media, what will they do if we decline to help and claim the mess isn’t Federal? The DC police chief is a dick but he’s also ambitious. He wants this to go away, and fast. He thinks this ploy obligates us while absolving his people of their apathy, but he hasn’t thought far enough ahead. If he wants to use us this way _and_ get our help, he’ll have to give us something.”

Prentiss blinks and tries not to smile back. “And what do you want in return?”

“A favor from an ambitious man. To be honored without question at a time of my choosing in the future.”

“Fuck,” Prentiss huffs. “You are a dangerous guy, Hotch.”

Aaron chuckles softly and shuffles to keep his feet warm. “Honestly, it’s just second nature now. Everyone has an angle.” He pauses for a moment, his chuckle fading quickly. “I think it’s a little sad that I’ve come to see the world that way.”

Prentiss is silent beside him but he can feel her eyes on him, calculating. “Are you okay?” she asks quietly. He turns and finds her genuinely concerned. “You’ve been a lot more introspective lately…”

He tries to shrug it off. “It’s nothing. I’m just getting older, I suppose. That’s what old men do, isn’t it? Think too much.”

Prentiss makes an odd, dismissive noise and starts stamping her feet as well. “Careful, Aaron, I’m not that much younger than you, you know.” The side of her mouth curls in a smirk. “And you’ve always thought too much. That’s why you can professionally extort people so effectively. And it’s probably why you’re still single.”

Aaron arches an eyebrow and glares at her, but Prentiss just rolls her eyes and continues smirking in an annoying way. After a while, he gives up trying to intimidate her; they know each other’s angles too well and it’s a wasted effort. She keeps glancing over his shoulder while they wait and finally he has to ask.

“What do you see?”

“A guy in the crowd watching.”

“They’re all watching.”

“No. Everyone’s watching the CSI techs, waiting for a glimpse of a bodybag or something. This guy is watching _you_ , Hotch.”

He wants to turn and look, but his instincts tell him, no. “Describe him.”

“5’10”, mid-thirties, hundred and eighty pounds give or take, olive skin, dark hair and eyes, ink on his neck, dressed to blend in – hoody and jeans… What do you think?”

“Doesn’t ring any bells.” Aaron’s stomach twists and then drops with an intensity the moment doesn’t deserve. He knows that a part of him _hoped_ it was something else, but now he has to worry if he’s caught the eye of another psychopath somehow. “Take a picture?” he suggests without moving.

Prentiss whips out her phone and takes a quick photo over his shoulder. “Well, that did it,” she grumbles. “The guy took off.”

Aaron turns to the crowd for the first time even though it’s too late. He looks back at Prentiss who holds up her phone to him. The image lacks detail but there’s enough for him to realize that this guy is a complete stranger to him. But his expression is… well, if Aaron didn’t know better, he’d categorize it as sorrow. He shrugs, truly at a loss.

“Perhaps he’s connected to one of the prior victims, or has a missing loved one. Let’s share that around with the rest of the team and if anyone sees him again, we should try to talk to him. See what his story is.”

Prentiss nods and begins typing on her phone. Aaron looks back at the crowd again, but that sorrowful face isn’t there. He wonders…

“That’s been happening to me a lot lately…” he mumbles.

“What’s been happening a lot?” Prentiss is only half paying attention, squinting at her phone.

“Weird stranger encounters.” There was that poor girl in the café just before New Year’s, and Spe– He stops himself before he goes any further. And now this Sad Guy, whoever he is. That’s three in seven weeks, which is three more than he’s had in the past three years. It’s a pattern. He shouldn’t ignore a pattern.

“Look on the bright side,” Prentiss murmurs. “Maybe we just caught a look at our UnSub, and half of our work on this case is done.”

Aaron grumbles and shuffles on his feet again. “You and I have differing interpretations on what qualifies as ‘good news’.”

Prentiss just laughs at him.

\---- 

**Wednesday, January 24**

He’s stopped going to the café, stopped deluding himself about chasing a ghost, but that doesn’t prevent him passing by it from time to time. He chalks that up to nostalgia and whimsy, and not a pervading sense of loneliness at all. Today it’s less gloomy than usual for January and though he doesn’t have the time to spare a place that only makes his chest hurt, he does it anyway. Perhaps Prentiss is right: he _does_ think too much.

He’s striding forward, refusing to let this geographic location drain any more of him like the sentimental old fool he is, when he comes upon her. She’s small and scrawny, not dressed for the chill and sitting curled on the café’s front steps as if she’s waiting for someone. And when she looks up to see him passing by, her face lights up for a split second as if _it’s him_ she’s been waiting on. Which doesn’t make any sense since he’s never met this little girl before. She straightens her back and watches him pass, and something niggles at him. It’s not right – she should be in school or something. And it’s cold out. She’s not dressed appropriately. If she were Jack, he’d hope that someone would help him, not just walk on by like he wasn’t there. He turns back.

“Hey there. Are you here all by yourself?”

The girl’s eyes widen in her dark face, and Aaron remembers all the lectures he’s given to Jack about talking to strangers. He huffs and kneels down, fishing out his badge and letting her get a good look.

“Can you read what that says?” he asks. The girl hugs her knees to her chest, eyes owlish, but she nods. “It means I’m a police man. I’m someone who helps people when they really need it. My name is Aaron.”

He waits, giving her plenty of space. People pass them on the sidewalk but no one stops to help or asks what he’s doing. Modern life can be disheartening that way.

“I’m June,” she mumbles, eyes looking up and then ducking away again.

“June,” he smiles. “What a beautiful name. Hello, June, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” He holds out his hand and after a confusing hesitation, she slips her tiny hand in his, squeezes once and then curls back into herself.

“Well, June, now we aren’t strangers anymore, are we?” He keeps smiling, trying to ease her, and she eventually shakes her head, no, and hides a smile behind her hand. “You’re right to be careful around people you don’t know,” he continues. “Did your Mom teach you that?”

June nods.

“Is she inside getting a coffee?”

June shakes her head. “I don’t know where she is,” she says softly, lower lip trembling. “She was here and then she wasn’t. I dunno… I dunno where she went…” Her chest begins to hiccup and then the tears start. Aaron scoots a little closer until he’s crouched next to her on the steps.

“Okay, sweetheart, don’t cry. We’ll find her.” He undoes his coat and tucks it around her, dwarfing her ridiculously, but at least she won’t freeze. “Do you know her phone number, June? I could call her…”

“I…I don’t ‘member it…” she cries as he rubs her back and tries to calm her.

“That’s okay, June. We’ll figure this out, alright? Deep breaths, we’ll find her…”

“I wanna go home…” she whines.

“Do you know where home is?”

June nods as she hiccups some more and smears her tears across her cheeks.

“You do? Well, aren’t you smart.”

June smiles shyly under her sticky tear tracks, trying to hide it in the collar of his coat.

“What’s the address?”

But she shakes her head again. “I don’t know the name. But I can get there on the bus. I know the bus numbers. We take five-oh-seven and five-oh-nine. Going back it’s five-oh-nine and five-oh-seven. Then we walk for a while.”

Aaron sighs. But at least it’s something. He’s going to have a serious conversation with June’s parents about teaching emergency information to her when he meets them. “Okay, honey. I guess that means we’re going for a bus ride. Do you know which stops to get off at?”

“Yes,” June perks up. “I know them when I see them.”

“Well… let’s take you home then.” Aaron stands and offers her his hand. She reaches out, her own hand small and delicate in his, but when she stands, she pulls back a little. “What is it, sweetpea?”

“You’re… you’re a good guy,” she says it like it’s a question. “A police man…”

He ducks down on one knee again and smiles. “Yes, I am, June, and I promise that I’ll keep you safe until we get you back to your parents.” He holds up his little finger. “I pinky swear it, and you know you can’t ever break a pinky swear, can you?”

June giggles, it rocks her whole body, and then she clamps a hand over her mouth and tentatively offers the other for the sacred oath. They link their baby fingers together and Aaron grins. “There. A promise is a promise. Now let’s get you bundled up…”

He tucks his coat around her more securely, tying the long arms around her middle like a belt to keep it in place. It’s more like a suit of armor than a jacket. “Warm enough?” he says when he looks up into her eyes again, but she’s looking at him strangely. The expression is like she’d trust him to take her anywhere, like she knows him. He’s taken aback for a moment, but she’s just a child – they always trust too easily, seeing goodness wherever they look.

“C’mon then…” He stands and holds out his hand again, and she takes it and doesn’t let go the entire way.

The bus journey takes almost forty-five minutes and try as he might, Aaron can’t get June to elaborate on much about her life. She won’t talk about her parents and that pings some warning signs for him. He asks if she’s ever been lost before, have they ever left her anywhere, but June just shrugs and talks about dinosaurs and how much she likes coloring. She talks about books and dragons, kicking her legs and peering out the bus windows contentedly as people stare at the grim-faced white man in a suit holding onto a little black girl’s hand. He feels conspicuous and defensive, but stows it away because he’s just doing his job. He’s doing _what’s right_ when everyone else was happy to walk on by. 

Though June’s clothes aren’t shabby, they aren’t new either and she was left outside in winter without a coat. She doesn’t appear abused, but sometimes that isn’t always apparent. But as the bus carries them from the grittier side of downtown into more affluent neighborhoods, Aaron is surprised. Sure, he’s making an assumption about June’s situation, but when she pops up with a smile and yells “It’s next! It’s next!” he can’t imagine her living in one of these larger homes with the sprawling front yards.

They get off the bus and June grabs his hand and begins leading him down a wide street with plenty of older trees. Every house has a driveway and is set well back from the street, evidence of a 50s construction aesthetic that has become commodified for the elites; poor people don’t live in homes like these.

“You live _here?_ ” he can’t help but ask as June tugs him along.

“Soon,” she huffs excitedly. “It’s soon…”

The street ends in a cul-de-sac and June tromps up one of the lawns of the homes on the curve. The house’s front is shaded by elms and ivy that’s claimed half the windows – it’s very private even for this upscale neighborhood. Aaron can’t make it fit with the little girl without a coat, and his gut pings again: something’s off.

June lets go of his hand and takes off at a run for the front door. She pushes against it and it gives way with an electronic buzz-click that signals an expensive home security device. June must have a sensor on her somewhere instead of a key. But still, he’s wary.

“June, honey… wait…” But she doesn’t listen, disappearing into the house and leaving the door open behind her. “Jesus,” he mutters, and follows her lead. He makes it to the door and then decides to check the garage at the end of the driveway. He walks over, arches up to see through the small plexi window at the side of the building, and stops dead.

Inside June’s garage is a 1965 Volkswagen Amazon.

“Margot,” Aaron breathes as his stomach flips on him. What are the odds? How many ‘65 Amazons could there possibly be in D.C.? He turns to face the open front door. “June? June, where are you?”

He strides through the doorway, now tense and alert in a home that’s too quiet, too dark, and too incongruous for his liking.

“June, are your parents home?” he calls out but nothing comes back. There’s a cold, nervous zip of electricity down his spine and he wants to draw his piece. But he doesn’t. He keeps walking deeper into the home. “I’m Aaron Hotchner of the FBI. I’m looking for June’s parents. If anyone is in this house, call out and make yourself known. I’m armed.”

“There’s no one here but us, Aaron,” June’s voice calls out distantly.

“Where are you?”

“The office. It’s past the living room.”

Aaron comes to the living room, which is massive, and notes that there isn’t a single toy in it, no family photos or children’s art on the walls. The colors are muted, the furnishings expensive and precise, but the layout suggests it’s all designed around a single focus. Aaron’s experience tells him that this isn’t a family home despite June’s access and the building’s generous dimensions. In his house, evidence of Jack is everywhere, even when it’s clean. Everything looks used, like it has a purpose… but that’s absent here. He’s confused and edgy as he follows a hallway away from the main room until he finds an open doorway. Once again, he wants to hold his gun for the false sense of security it would give him. But it’s just a bad feeling; he has no proof of anything yet. 

June is inside the office waiting for him patiently. She’s abandoned his coat on a seat opposite a desk that spans the length of the room, and looming above the desk is a bank of screens that would make Garcia jealous. The whole room whirs softly with fans to cool enough hardware to boggle the mind. There’s even a small server blinking away benignly in the corner. It’s like he’s walked into every tech nerd’s wet dream. He doesn’t understand, and now he’s looking at all of this and thinking about the car in the garage and he needs answers immediately because everything here spells out something sinister and dangerous.

“June, does the car in the garage belong to one of your parents?”

June just stares at him. Something about her is off now as well. Her eyes are old suddenly, her posture has lost its fearfulness. It’s like she’s someone else inside that tiny body.

“Do you know a man named Spencer?”

At the mention of Spencer’s name, June looks surprised, her mouth falling open and then shutting as she clamps her hands tightly in front of her.

“You know him, don’t you?” Aaron strides forward, and his face must be angry because she backs away from him until she bumps into the desk behind her. He stops and holds his hands up, taking a huge breath and telling himself to calm down. You can’t interrogate a seven-year-old.

“June, honey, I’m not angry. I’m just confused. Do you know where Spencer is? I need to talk to him. He’s not in trouble or anything. Just tell me where he is.”

But June’s mouth becomes a pale line along her face. 

“Okay, well, how about your parents? Can you tell me where _they_ are?” he huffs. “Give me something, sweetheart, because I need to understand what’s going on in this house.”

“I don’t have parents,” she says softly, looking surprisingly guilty. Just another thing he doesn’t get.

“Well, foster parents, family, whomever you live with, dear…”

“I live here alone, Aaron.”

Her voice has changed. It’s still high and soft like a child’s, but there’s something knowing behind it. And for the first time in he doesn’t know how long, Aaron is frightened. 

“The car in the garage is mine,” she continues.

He blinks, struggling, fighting with everything he can’t seem to synthesize into something he understands. “Honey, this isn’t the time for games, and it’s not right to lie to a friend-”

“You’re right, Aaron, it isn’t right to lie to a friend.” June walks over to a keyboard in the middle of the desk and taps a command that quickly brings videos up onto the main screens of the room. “I think these might help. Take a look.”

There are dozens of videos playing simultaneously. All of them are confessions straight into the camera from different people of all ages, ethnicities, all types. He catches snippets of their voices – talking about their day, laughing, serious, but none of them seem forced or scared. The faces change, videos end and new ones begin in their place. He hears the same statement over and over: “this is me today…”

“What is this?” he breathes in horror of the sheer breadth of it. Then he sees it off to the right: Spencer is making a confession into the camera.

_…met someone. His name is Aaron. It was brief but… interesting. He said he wished we had ‘more time’_

Suddenly Aaron is enraged. This feels like a trap. He stumbles back from the screen and then turns his anger on the only other person in the room.

“That’s Spencer,” he jabs a finger at the screen. “Where is he? What have you done with him? With _all_ of them?”

Before June can answer, Aaron hears his name again and finds an older man yelling from the screen.

_Could you see me again? If I showed up with this face, would any of me stand out to you? If I could go back…_

“Who is he?” Aaron says without realizing, because the man seems distraught – about _him_ \- and Aaron’s never met him.

“He’s me, Aaron,” June says gently, taking a hesitant step forward and then sweeping a tiny hand in front of the screens. “They are all me. _I’m_ Spencer.”

Aaron turns to stone. This is pure lunacy. He’s fallen into some sort cult or elaborate confidence scheme of some kind. _None_ of this makes any sense.

“Every three days, I wake up in a different body,” June explains, eyes wide and almost as scared as he feels. “It’s been happening since I was eighteen. I don’t know why and I can’t control it.” She sighs and tangles her fingers nervously in front of her as he stares on, horrified. “The reason why you never saw me again is… my face changed.” She takes another cautious step forward, expression pleading in a way that’s familiar on a face that’s new to him. “But I wanted to, Aaron, believe me. I wanted to see you again so badly… I tried to forget, but-”

“Who ARE you?!?” Aaron roars so suddenly that it shocks even him. June… Spencer… whoever jumps back in fright. “Why would you do this? To what end? Who’s running you? Who fed you these details?”

“A-Aaron…”

“Is Spencer still alive?” he chokes out, his experience suddenly whispering that Spencer might have been a victim, that all of these people might be victims no one’s linked together. “Did he do this willingly, or did you coerce him somehow?”

“Aaron, please-” 

“Tell me now, or so help me, I’ll have this whole place locked down and crawling with Feds in less than twenty minutes…”

“ _I’m Spencer!_ ” June’s face creases up and her fists bunch as she yells. Then she opens her eyes and there’s an ache far older than she is in them. “Listen to me, please… just listen…”

Aaron is frozen. He doesn’t know what to do. He has _no idea what to do…_ June takes his paralysis as permission to keep talking. She threads her fingers together nervously again, and it’s just so _weird._

“I told you I had a condition, remember?”

Aaron doesn’t do anything but stare.

“Well, as difficult as it is to wrap your head around, _this_ is it.” June gestures to her seven-year-old self. “I get your disbelief – trust me, I do. I’m a scientist, a lover of logic and reason, and I can find neither in this affliction. It’s really, really hard to manage and still stay sane…”

“Why… why are you talking like that?” Aaron breathes. He can’t jumpstart his intellect; all he knows is that a tiny girl is speaking with the words of someone he used to know.

June’s eyebrows lower and she looks a bit irritated. “Aaron, please try to focus a little. This is kinda a paradigm-shifting moment here.”

“Paradigm-shifting…” his face creases in incredulity. “ _What??_ ”

“Aaron, look past what you think you know,” June sighs and manages to look tired and earnest beyond her years. “What do your profiling skills tell you? Not what makes _sense_ , just what you see…”

And Aaron begins collating facts before he can think about it. Margot. Single-person household. Extreme privacy. Technological sophistication. Spencer said he was a coder, working remotely from his home. June knows things, things that happened in private conversations. She uses language and affect that doesn’t reflect her age… it’s doesn’t appear to be a well-rehearsed act. 

Something must change in his expression as he thinks because June’s face softens and she tries to smile.

“You told me about Dan…” she says softly, almost afraid to provoke. “You said you loved him, that he was important to you in a way you didn’t really understand. I told you that perhaps we were important to each other in the same way… that night we broke into Georgetown…”

Aaron’s eyes focus hard on that tiny face. It’s just not possible. Is it? 

“I trusted you, Aaron. I still do. And I think you trusted me as well. When we ran, when we hid, and then I kissed you when I shouldn’t – I was all wrapped up in that crazy feeling between us and I was terrified we’d be caught and it would ruin you and I knew I was running out of time so I let it all get away from me… I just _liked_ you so much,” June’s eyes get huge as she pauses, takes a massive breath that makes her rock on her feet. “But then you kissed me back… and it was so… good, so righ-”

“Stop it! Stop talking that way!” Aaron yells, queasy with Spencer’s mind falling out of a child’s mouth. “You’re _a child!_ ”

“I’m a child _today_ ,” June/Spencer barks with authority, seemingly distraught and frustrated that Aaron’s refusing to get this. “But tomorrow I’ll be someone else. Inside – every damned day – I’m Spencer. I’ve been here the whole time, every day for eleven years, _**alone**_ in this. Without a single person I could share it with.”

“So, you lure me here, tell me this impossible story, and… what, exactly?” Aaron is sneering. He doesn’t want to, but it appears to be his body’s reaction to the terror he’s experiencing. “What do you expect me to do with this?”

“I expect you to listen!” June/Spencer bellows, tiny frame shaking with it, like she’s having a tantrum. “I expect you to recognize the huge risk I’m taking! I want you to look past my body and SEE ME!”

“For what purpose?” Aaron punches back, shaking too now that some part of him has decided that he is, in fact, talking to the man he’s been obsessing over for two months. But it’s impossible, so impossible now… “How can I talk about what meeting you meant to me when you’re inside a prepubescent girl? What am I supposed to do with _that?_ We can’t even be friends… it’s completely inappropriate…”

“What?” June/Spencer looks stunned, shoulders sagging as the anger drains away suddenly. “You won’t even… consider friendship? Because of the way I look?”

“Spen-” Aaron catches himself angrily and shakes his head. “Whatever I’m supposed to call you-”

“You call me Spencer!”

“Fine,” he grits. “Spencer. Be realistic. Any connection between us now is impossible.”

Spencer blinks, eyes shining and cheeks dark. “This is my last day with this face. Tomorrow I won’t be a child…”

“It doesn’t matter,” Aaron waves it off, trying to swallow down the dread of this: the man he’s be seeking is here, but beyond his reach. “It won’t be the last time you’re a child, will it?”

Spencer blinks, swallows hard, and then looks down while making a small choking sound. It’s heartbreaking no matter who it’s happening to. Aaron’s chest gets tight out of instinct, but then he really thinks about the specifics of this situation.

“You could anyone tomorrow,” he starts slowly, Spencer still staring at the floor around his My Little Pony sneakers. “Anyone at all, right? Perhaps you’ll be someone even more inappropriate than… well, this.”

Spencer looks up. His cheeks are wet but his eyes are hard enough to make Aaron take a half step back.

“It’s… too much, Spencer. No matter how close we felt or how genuinely we felt it, this is too much to ask of me. It’s not fair.”

And then Spencer begins to laugh.

“Not fair?” The laughter gets louder, a little unhinged, but the hardness never leaves his eyes as he pins Aaron down with them. “You know what’s ‘not fair’? That I haven’t seen my Mom since I was eighteen, and because she’s a schizophrenic with dementia, she’s probably dreamed up a terrible reason for my disappearance _and then_ forgotten about me.”

Spencer steps forward and Aaron’s never been so afraid of a small girl in his life.

“You know what else isn’t fair? That sometimes I wake up blind, or a paraplegic, or in crippling pain without warning, and I have to figure out how to handle it on my own. Once I woke up eight months pregnant. Do you have _any idea_ how disturbing it was to experience the sudden sensation of having another organism moving inside you? And that body, that child? I don’t even know if they exist now. I don’t know if the bodies I inhabit are borrowed from real people, or if they’re just… selections from the ether – manifestations of possibility that blink into existence for three days and then blink out again.”

Spencer is waving his tiny arms around manically, face creased with years-worth of pent up anger.

“I think about that life that I carried around all the time. I’m conflicted about wanting it to exist or not. I think about my own body – the one I was born with. Does someone else wear it now? Did it just evaporate when I made my first change? Is there a stranger wearing my face out there, visiting my Mom maybe, and pretending to be me?!?”

Aaron can’t do anything but blink, watching Spencer draw closer, getting more enraged, as he’s forced to listen to the nightmare Spencer’s unspooling.

“What’s not fair is that I have to hide all the time. I’m not hurting anyone, haven’t broken any laws, but I live in fear of being discovered. It’s not fair that I can never have a family, never have a lover for more than three days – _never have a friend_ – because people can’t handle what I’ve had no choice but to learn to live with.”

The condemnation comes out with a strange growl, but all it does is make Aaron feel sick. His face is heating uncontrollably and Spencer just keeps stalking forward like a tiny, devastating whirlwind of disappointment. A small voice in the back of Aaron’s brain whispers that Spencer has an absolute right to every drop of his resentment.

“I don’t know why this happened to me. I don’t know what I did to deserve it. And I don’t know if it happens to anyone else, or… or if this is some torturous, decade-long epileptic fit of identity crisis that I somehow created myself!”

Spencer spits it out with loathing. It’s a hatred that’s aged and hard. Aaron thinks that Spencer may hate no one more than himself, and it makes his throat close and his heart race.

“What’s not fair is that I thought you were different. I longed for that. And I put everything on the line for this moment. For you.” Spencer comes to stand a foot in front of Aaron, arching his little neck back to look up and utterly dismantle the man standing over him. “And you. can’t. handle. it.”

Aaron staggers back from the glare he can’t ignore. He feels like he’ll be sick, bile inching up his chest, cloying, suffocating him… “Stay away from me.”

Spencer takes another step forward and before Aaron can think, he’s drawn his gun and is pointing it at a seven-year-old chest. Spencer freezes in place, his expression melting into shocked desolation immediately.

“Just… just stay away…” Aaron gulps, his breath coming too shallowly, his chest tight and the edges of his vision turning pale. Shit. A panic attack?

“Aaron,” Spencer whispers, eyes riveted to the gun. “Are you… are you going to _shoot me?_ ”

Aaron is transfixed by his own fear. He marvels at how this scene has completely unmade him. Aaron Hotchner and his legendary cool… He stares at his gun, feels as if another hand is pointing it, and then, with great effort, retracts the weapon and holsters it.

“Sorry…” he gasps and stumbles like a drunk. Spencer’s eyes follow him in panic, but he remains absolutely still. “Sorry… I… I can’t…”

Then he’s out of the office, slamming into the hall wall painfully and lurching blindly back the way he came in. He’s not seeing too well, and he’s barely breathing, working numb limbs to propel him forward, towards the front door, the light beyond it, to freedom from this…

“Aaron!” Spencer calls out shrilly from behind making him panic and stumble faster. “Aaron, please! I’m sorry… don’t go! Please don’t go!”

Aaron slams into something hard and grunts, wincing when he hears shattering around him. He reaches out, grabs the doorframe, and heaves himself out into the murky January light, gasping like a drowning man.

“Fuck!” he wheezes through a chest made of iron, trips down the steps, and begins stumbling across the lawn blindly. He thinks he hears a muted “Please!”, but he’s not sure if it’s real or not. He reaches the sidewalk and starts to run in the direction of the bus stop, every step taking him further from the nightmare cul-de-sac. Spencer’s voice follows him – “Aaron, please, please… please don’t go!” – but by the time he’s reached the stop and mercifully finds a bus waiting there, he realizes he’s hallucinating. He fumbles for the fare, and collapses into a seat, sweaty, disoriented, and not caring which direction the bus is going. And still, Spencer’s voice follows him. _Please, Aaron, don’t go…_ But it isn’t a little girl’s voice anymore and no one else on the bus hears it.


	9. Day 4,127

Spencer waits for the axe to fall. He waits and waits.

But no sirens wail down his street, no grim-faced law enforcement types knock on his door and inform him that he no longer has any rights. No one demands proof of identity. His neighbors go about their business and no one bothers him at all. Nothing changes.

Except someone else knows, and that someone fled from him.

After the anxiety passes, the apathy sets in. He cashes in some of his stockpiled OT and vacation days, and checks out of all responsibility for anything. Jeff thinks he’s gone to Tahiti, but he just lies down on his sofa and doesn’t move. For days. He spends an entire face lying there, starving and dehydrating his body before it gives up and is replaced by a new one. It doesn’t make any difference – none of it does. He’s circling endlessly in the trap of his skin, and he can’t get out. It’s going to drive him mad, he can feel it coming. He’ll end up like his Mom, but with outsides as fractured and changeable as her insides.

Aaron ran. He _ran._ The misery of being abandoned so forcefully makes him whine and curl into himself every time he remembers it. Rejection was always a possibility, but that? He rolls over and pushes his face into the sofa cushions until he can’t breathe.

More days pass. He loses count. It starts to get ripe in his house, and for some reason that’s a bridge too far for him. He gets up, cleans, showers, discovers he’s a balding, portly, middle-aged Italian with more hair on his back than most people have all over. He sighs and slinks back to the couch, turns on Netflix, but still refuses to eat. His stomach growls angrily and he pats it like a cranky pet.

“You don’t really want Doritos, you know…”

There’s a knock at his door. He arches his head over the edge of the couch and wonders if he dismissed the concept of being arrested too soon. Strangely, that doesn’t even cause his heart to speed up. He waits, considers letting them batter his front door in, and then decides that’s more drama than he can handle. If Aaron turned him in, that’s fine. He’s not living for much these days. 

He walks towards the door when the knock sounds again. It isn’t loud or even authoritarian. He’s not afraid when he deactivates the alarm, unlocks the deadbolt, and swings the door open.

“Spencer.”

It’s a voice that breaks his heart. Aaron is standing on the stoop, looking like he hasn’t slept in years and with deep lines pulling his mouth down. His hands are in his pockets, making him seem sheepish, and his tie has disappeared, his dress shirt on the wrinkly side. In short, he looks rough, and something peevish in Spencer flares brightly to see it. But a much larger part of him is excited beyond words that he’s here. And that he greeted his face with his name and it wasn’t a question.

“May I come in?” he rumbles, and seems really unsure he’ll get permission, but Spencer nods and stands aside, breathless as Aaron steps through.

They stand in the hallway together, awkwardly, Aaron rolling gently on his feet while Spencer watches and waits.

“Ummm… are you… uh, busy? Is this a bad time?” Aaron winces a little as he says it. Spencer decides to cut to the chase.

“Why have you come?” he asks quietly. 

Aaron stares at him. It goes on for a very long time, his eyes searching, critical. Spencer allows it because that’s what he asked of Aaron from the beginning: to look beyond the surface. 

“I… I need to see you change,” Aaron murmurs finally. And this voice that broke his heart suddenly becomes the cure. “Will you… let me witness that?”

“Why?” Spencer whispers.

“Because it will always be abstract until I do,” Aaron keeps staring at him. “I think I see you in this face, but I don’t know if it’s because I _want_ to see you, or because there’s something exactly, immutably _you_ that carries through.”

Spencer’s chest throbs painfully. “You _want_ to see me?”

Aaron’s expression collapses into grief so quickly it catches Spencer’s breath. “I’m sorry for the things I said before…” he whispers damply, shocking Spencer down to his bones. “For the way I acted. I was… terrified. You terrified me…”

What? 

“Aaron,” he gasps. “No, I… I’m sorry-”

“Don’t apologize,” Aaron says roughly, shaking his head. “Not after all the shit you’ve survived to get here, to this point where… you thought you had a friend who could finally handle the truth…”

“Aaron, c’mon, it’s not that cut and dried. You were right: this is a lot to take in. I forget that because… this is my life, and we’re not constantly stepping outside of our lives to evaluate them, are we? We just _live_ them. We take stuff for granted.”

“But still…” Aaron reaches out a hand as if to touch him, and then pulls it back awkwardly. Spencer doesn’t know what his intention was, but his heart speeds to a breakneck pace at the sight of it. “So, is that a yes? Will you let me see the change?” 

“If you want to, of course.”

Aaron nods and another bout of silence settles over them. “Ummm, so, when do you… is it… soon?”

“I’m on my last day with this face. I’ll change tonight.”

“And… how does that work exactly?”

“Well,” Spencer shrugs, feeling weird about discussing this aloud for the first time. “I don’t really know.”

Aaron looks confused. “How can you not know?”

“It happens while I sleep. I wake up and the change has already occurred. I don’t know if it’s a slow metamorphosis or a sudden blinking into and out of existence… You’ll have to tell me, I suppose.” He tries for a smile. Aaron looks nervous.

“You’ve… never thought to film it?” Aaron asks.

Wow. He never thought of that. “No, never,” he says in wonder. “That’s a pretty glaring investigatory blind spot, isn’t it?”

“That’s why the Bureau makes us work with partners: different perspectives can be useful.”

The silence descends again, and Spencer decides to wordlessly break it by walking deeper into his home and inviting Aaron to follow. He takes them to the living room, Netflix frozen on his massive flat screen, and sinks into the couch. Then he looks up at Aaron and juts his chin to invite him to do the same. Aaron does, looking tremendously uncomfortable, and leaving three feet of space between them.

“Are you hungry?” Spencer asks.

“Not really.”

Spencer nods, then tries again. “Ever seen this show?”

“No.”

“It’s pretty good. I think you’ll like it.”

“Okay.”

And they let the fiction wash over them, carrying them away in other people’s problems that can be wrapped up in forty-five minutes. Spencer bides his time, questions burning their way through him, and when he can’t take it any longer, he expends a lot of energy trying to make his voice sound casual.

“Why did you come back, Aaron?” he whispers, eyes on the screen. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

There’s a long pause and then a deep sigh beside him. “You’re in my head.”

Spencer looks at him then, but Aaron is looking down at his hands folded in his lap.

“I see you, I hear you, I _miss_ you…” He glances up and his gaze is wrecked. “I kept hearing you begging me not to leave. I thought about what you said, tried to imagine what a decade of your life might have been like, and…” He takes a breath, letting it go unsteadily. “The _loneliness_ , Spencer…”

Spencer turns away.

“Maybe this… condition has taken something away from us,” Aaron continues softly. “Maybe we can never be those two guys on the floor of the star chart room again.”

Spencer swallows down the sudden weight in his throat, closes his eyes, waits for the pain to pass.

“But maybe we _can_ have friendship. Maybe we met for that exact reason: to help and be there for each other the way no one else can.”

There’s a hand on his arm, and Spencer turns to see Aaron leaning forward.

“You trusted me with this, Spencer. No one but me. That’s amazing. I’m sorry it took me so long to see that. I took some time and thought about all the things I’ve overcome in my life, all the changes I’ve adjusted to… so many of them seemed impossible in the beginning. But somehow we all find a way through difficulty.”

Aaron pauses, eyes flicking as if he’s about to broach something he doesn’t know the answer to yet. “What you asked of me _isn’t impossible._ Not really. You just want to be seen. In a way,” he pauses again. “So do I.”

Spencer just stares. The admission is just as lonely as his was. There is such a dissonance between the man sitting on his couch and the man who exists on paper as Aaron Hotchner.

“So, you’re in my head and I find I don’t want to let go. I haven’t wanted to let go since the day we met in that café. I don’t have an explanation for that, but… perhaps the reason isn’t important. This isn’t what I expected… it’s not how I’d hoped things would turn out, but… I’m here. I want to try and be your friend, if you’ll still let me.”

“Of course, I’ll let you,” Spencer chokes, vision getting watery on him but he can still make out the cautious smile that brings to Aaron. Then he decides to add inappropriate humor to it all in order to cover up how simultaneously wonderful and disappointing Aaron’s proposal is. “But you should know I already have feelers out for replacement-Aarons, so, bring you’re A game, okay? Just because you pinky-swore to protect me when I was a seven-year-old girl doesn’t make up for the fact that you also thought I might be the Creature from the Black Lagoon.”

Aaron looks stunned for a moment and then laughs, loud and relieved, making Spencer chuckle too. “Well, I never promised that I _wouldn’t_ shoot you, Spence…”

The shortened name cause Spencer’s face to heat, and he tries to smile it away; no one’s called him that since he last saw his Mom. He likes it. It feels familiar in a way that’s become a distant memory for him. But perhaps now it won’t be so distant.

“I’m sorry I frightened you,” he says after the laughter fades. Aaron’s eyes find his and seem to search for something. “I thought… using an innocent face might make you listen more carefully. It was hard to wait for the right one, to decide _how_ to do it… I tried to approach you a few times, but lost my nerve.”

Aaron blinks. “You… came to me as different people?” Spencer nods, unsure of how he’ll process this; it is deception, in a way. “How many?”

Spencer sighs. “I only spoke to you once. I ran into you by accident and it was then that I decided I should find a way to tell you everything. I was a girl that day – you were worried I’d catch a cold.”

Aaron’s face goes slack, his eyes wide. “The young woman at the café who came in from the rain…”

“Yeah,” Spencer shrugs, cheeks getting warm. “And then there was a time when I found out about a local crime scene you and your team were working. It was impulsive, but I went anyway. I don’t know what I was thinking – my face was inappropriate and so was the venue. Then a member of your team – the woman with the dark hair – took my picture, and I got scared. Took off.”

“Jesus…” Aaron breathes, looking pale and shaken.

“That’s when I decided that I had to be someone young, in need of help. Our appearance causes so much unconscious prejudice – I couldn’t approach you as just anyone. So, I waited for the right face. It was calculated, and for that I apologize, but I wanted the best chance, you see. So you’d listen to me.”

Aaron closes his eyes and gently shakes his head. “I think… I think I knew. Somehow…”

“Did you?” Spencer gasps, sitting straighter, heart in the back of his throat, but Aaron doesn’t say anything else. He just opens his eyes and stares at a spot on the wall below Spencer’s TV. What did it mean if Aaron _knew?_ Or what if he just invented that to make them both feel better?

Spencer swallows down his heart, hard. “It was never my intention to scare you, Aaron, and I’m really upset that I did. I just got… so angry. It’s frustrating, living this way.”

And suddenly Aaron snaps back to the present, looking at Spencer with a softness that catches him off guard. “I told you – you don’t have to apologize.”

“But I got angry, and it isn’t your fault. If anything, this is _my_ doing. Somehow, I’ve always thought I made this happen to me. I just don’t know how,” Spencer says a little too harshly, making Aaron stare at him more intensely. “And I lied and scared you. You don’t do those things to a friend.”

“Okay, okay…” Aaron hushes, laying a hand on Spencer’s arm again for a moment. “I get it: you’re sorry, even though I don’t think you need to be. I accept that.” He pauses a moment before continuing in a softer tone. “How can you think you brought this on yourself? You’re a rational person, and this? This is… magic of some kind.”

Spencer snorts. “Magic is just a word we use to describe what we can’t adequately explain yet. There _is_ a reason behind this, but it’s one I can’t fathom. And reason suggests causality.”

“Yes,” Aaron nods. “But it doesn’t follow that _you_ are the cause.”

“How could it not be me?” Spencer says incredulously. “I’ve changed everything else. My environment, my connections, my food, my habits, my aspirations… the only thing that’s remained constant is ME.”

“Spencer…” Aaron admonishes gently, and it’s almost too much kindness to bear; he doesn’t understand.

“When I was a kid, I _hated_ who I was,” he says with shame. It’s almost as painful as being told that you are hated. Aaron sits back, shocked, his hand falling away from Spencer’s arm. Spencer presses on.

“My Dad left when I was young and started a new family. He never looked back. And then he died, leaving me alone with Mom. Mom was sick…” The words choke him, and he has to clear his throat roughly before he can continue. “Anyway, she wasn’t ‘there’ much, so I was essentially rejected by my parents. I didn’t have any friends, any other family… I was awkward and weird and thoroughly ignorable except for my mind. But that just made me even more different. No one wanted anything to do with me, and after a while, I came around to the same idea.”

“Spence-”

“I just wanted to be someone else – anyone. Someone normal, someone likeable, someone with something to offer. I wanted to escape… I was a kid. What the hell did I know?”

He looks up and Aaron is blurry to him. He realizes, too late, that he’s never said these things aloud to anyone – he’s not prepared for how they sound or how they shake him.

“What if I hated everything so much that I _did this?_ ” His voice is wispy, insubstantial against the overwhelming idea he’s held inside for years. “What if I made it all so much worse? What if a lifetime alone is punishment for being ungrateful for what I was given in the first place?”

The questions seem to stop Aaron completely. He just watches Spencer from his corner of the sofa and blinks. Then, after an aching bout of silence in the lonely house, he takes a breath loud enough to sound like he’s breathing for both of them. Then he looks Spencer in the eye.

“You’re not alone anymore,” he says.

And that breaks Spencer. His chest hitches with a decade’s worth of fear and remorse, and he sinks down under it unable to shoulder the weight any longer. He feels Aaron’s hand land and gently squeeze as the tears come. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t offer false hope; he just sits and shares it with him. No longer alone.

He doesn’t know how long it goes on – just draining himself and Aaron bearing witness to it – but when he comes back, the exhaustion pulls at him and he knows what the feeling means.

“I’m tired,” he whispers, wiping away his humiliation. “On the last night with a face, the compulsion to sleep is stronger…”

“Does that mean…” Aaron looks apprehensive.

“I have to lie down. Sometimes I can fight it, but I usually regret that afterwards.”

“Okay.”

Aaron rises from the couch and watches Spencer intently, as if the change will happen at any moment. It makes Spencer smile a little that he’s so focused. He nods towards the bedroom. 

“C’mon. I’ll show you something that will probably blow your mind a little bit.”

“More than it already is?” Aaron says as he follows him. 

Spencer leads him to the master bedroom that features a large bed and an even larger closet. He swings the doors open to reveal storage that spans the length of the room, and inside are clothes, shoes, accessories and random things for every occasion imaginable. He hears Aaron gasp a little and turns to face him with an awkward smile.

“I have a little bit of everything. I have to.”

He watches as Aaron’s eyes flick over the suits in different sizes and lengths, the dresses, the children’s shoes, and then finally land on a wheelchair folded and set against the far closet wall.

“I told you I once woke up paralyzed from the waist down,” he mumbles. “I had to drag myself through the house along the floor by my arms. It was exhausting. I finally made it to my office and spent twenty minutes trying to get into my desk chair. Then I used it to get around the house because it has wheels.”

Aaron’s eyes meet his in a kind of muted disbelief.

“After that, I went out and bought a wheelchair. Just in case. I’ve used it a few times since, when I was in the body of a stroke victim and one that had some sort of atrophied muscle syndrome… That incident also prompted me to store food in lower cupboards in the kitchen. After three days of eating only the stuff on the counter and the bottom of the fridge, I got pretty hungry.”

“Christ,” Aaron mutters.

Spencer nods. “Yeah. It’s all the stuff you don’t think about, ya know? That’s what gets you.”

And then Aaron is crushing him to his chest as Spencer staggers and tries to figure out what’s happening.

“A-Aaron?”

“This shouldn’t be your life,” he mumbles into his shoulder. “I don’t care how much you think you deserve it. _No one_ deserves this.”

Spencer leans into the hug, enjoying the warmth of another person. “Thank you,” he whispers, though it’s more for the embrace than the sentiment; he’s sure he deserves what he’s become.

After a moment, Aaron pulls back, a strained look on his face as if he’s caught between two opposing impulses. His hands, warm and heavy, slide to Spencer’s shoulders as he holds him at arm’s length. Spencer wishes that he were a little more appealing right now, so that he might get a little more of this closeness. But he’s knows what he looks like, and he knows, good man or not, Aaron is just as moved by appearances as everyone else. And for the first time, Spencer realizes he’s a hypocrite. Because Aaron is handsome and Spencer is helplessly drawn to that. He’s always wanted his insides to matter more than his face. But would he feel the same way about Aaron if he were to suddenly change as Spencer does? Would he want him as much if he were shorter, fatter, plainer than he is? The truth is that Aaron is compelling, but he’s _alluring_ because of the body he’s in. It’s hard to blame Aaron for being hesitant when Spencer no longer resembles the more attractive version that lives in Aaron’s mind.

“I, uh… I’m gonna lie down now,” Spencer mumbles, watching as Aaron still seems confused. Then he pulls from his grip and knees up onto the bed, finding his spot and curling the blanket over him. His eyes find Aaron again, still frozen in front of the massive closet, gaze wide and cheeks rosy even at a distance. “You know, I have no idea how long it will take. It could be all night. You might want to get comfortable.” 

He pats the open space next to him once and then tucks his hand away under the blankets while Aaron blinks.

“Seriously, Aaron,” he tries again. “You look tired. Give your body a rest, even if you won’t sleep. This isn’t a proposition. We both know that isn’t a possibility anymore.”

He swallows hard against the words, and Aaron appears to have a similar reaction. But then his expression gets determined as he shuffles across to the bed and gingerly lays himself out and watches Spencer. Spencer gives him a quick smile and then lets it fade away as they stare each other down.

“Are you really going to be okay with this?” he whispers after a long stretch of nothing. “You weren’t wrong when you said it was too much to ask of you. You barely know me.”

Aaron tucks an arm beneath his pillow, watching for a time as he considers. “To be honest, I don’t know _how_ I’ll be. But I told you that you weren’t alone anymore and I meant it. And I do know you, Spencer. Better than anyone else.”

Spencer can’t help but chuckle a little. “That’s a really short list. But I’m serious: you don’t owe me anything. It was enough that you came back and tried, and that you didn’t turn me in. That’s more than I expected.”

Aaron’s eyebrows lower and the lines around his mouth deepen. Spencer holds his breath and wonders what he said to provoke that. Then Aaron reaches out his hand. “Give me your finger.”

“What?”

Aaron cocks his pinky finger in Spencer’s direction. “Pinky finger, please.”

“Aaron, c’mon…”

But he stubbornly holds his finger in the space between them until Spencer gives in and shuffles a hand up from under the covers, hooking his pinky with Aaron’s.

“You are not alone in this anymore.” Aaron’s finger tightens around Spencer’s. “I give you my word.”

“Pinky swears are for little kids. I’m not a child, Aaron. At least, not today.”

“A promise is a promise,” he says simply, tugging Spencer’s finger once before letting it go. “Doesn’t matter how old you are.”

Spencer’s chest fills with a creeping sort of warmth, and it turns into a smile on him. “You’re a little bit ridiculous.”

“Perhaps.”

The quiet descends again as they stare at each other across the bed. It’s not easy, nor comfortable, but Spencer finds he can’t look away. And he doesn’t want to. He’s never had this before: a friend to share himself with.

Aaron is the one who eventually breaks the mesmerism. “I promised because I like you,” he whispers. “I’m upset because… we can’t be more. And I was wrapping my head around the idea of ‘more’ after that night at Georgetown.”

Spencer stops breathing for a moment, his lungs shutting down while his heart goes into overdrive to make up the difference. He’s not sure it’s even fair to talk about this now, since they agree it’s no longer a possibility.

“H-have you ever…” Spencer stutters. “With a man?”

Aaron shakes his head quietly against his pillow. “You?”

“No.”

“Ever thought about it?”

“Not really.”

“Oh,” Aaron diminishes a little, as if he’s sinking into the mattress.

“Not until you,” Spencer hurries, his heart slamming against his ribs painfully. It isn’t fair: it turns out they both wanted the same thing. Aaron meets his gaze again and looks incredibly sad. But then he smiles just a little – a gloomy kind of heartening.

“We’d probably have made a mess of it then,” he mumbles.

“Probably.” It would have been great to try though.

“So, I guess I’m the first man you’ve brought to this bed.” Aaron’s trying for humor, but Spencer shuts the door on that.

“I’ve never brought anyone to this bed, or this house. You’re the first.”

He can hear Aaron’s breath rattle in his chest as the smile and animation drains from his face. Then Aaron gulps hard and blinks too much. A strange sort of calm settles over Spencer as he takes in the reaction, and he’s almost detached when he watches Aaron’s hand slowly reach out and then hesitate before lining the edge of his pudgy jaw. Then he rockets back into his body, overcome by the tenderness of such a simple gesture, and the warmth of the palm now pressed close to him.

“Spence,” Aaron whispers so quietly that it’s barely there at all. “Why did you come looking for me? Why _me?_ What changed?”

Spencer rests in that sanctuary of warm connection a moment longer, and then sighs. “The only good thing about this… condition is that you can constantly reinvent yourself. Regrets don’t last, neither do mistakes, because they are all tied to the bodies that come and go so quickly. So, if I screwed up, wronged someone, slept with the wrong person… there was always a new skin to look forward to. Each face is entirely new, you see. That’s one of the rules: I never get the same face twice.”

“Never?”

Spencer shakes his head, feeling a stab of pain under his left ribs. “The face I had when you first met me? I’ll never have it again,” he says quietly and lets it sink in. Aaron tries to remain neutral, but the disappointment is obvious. “You liked it, didn’t you?”

“It was a nice face,” Aaron says simply. The stabbing under Spencer’s ribs gets sharper, and he hisses and shifts to ease it.

“Well, after meeting you,” Spencer continues, trying not to linger on the pain he can’t alter. “I changed faces of course, but it was no longer something I looked forward to. I didn’t want the memories of you to fade like the rest, I didn’t want to become someone new, having new adventures with new people. For the first time, I wanted to _go back_. I wanted to be that person you saw – I wanted him to be me.”

Spencer’s throat gets tight. “That can never be, but I thought… maybe I could still be that person. Inside. Even if I wore different faces. And maybe, you’d still be able to see that. I wanted you to see that so much, Aaron.”

The last part comes out wet and Aaron’s grip tightens along his jaw.

“I don’t want to change anymore. I want to stay. That’s why I had to find you again – to see if that was possible.”

“Spencer,” Aaron pauses, eyes flicking around like he’s unsure. “You are always _you_ under every face. That’s what you said to me. You’re not becoming a new person with every change…”

“No, you don’t understand,” Spencer shakes his head and Aaron’s hand slides away from his jaw. “I’m always playing a role. When I meet new people, I size them up – do a quick read to figure out what they like, what they need, what they are looking for – and then… I _become_ that for them. So they’ll stay.”

His face flames with shame because the admission is so craven, so needy, and also the absolute truth. A decade of his life has been dedicated to honing the craft of perfect mimicry, to be the best reflection of another’s wish. It’s actually not a life at all, just an endless series of vivid vignettes from other consciousnesses; he’s like a transient dream passed from one stranger’s life to another.

“If someone wants a confidante, I become a listener. If someone has had their heart broken, I become the supportive shoulder to cry on. If someone wants a silent, anonymous lover, I become passionate and forgettable. After so many years, it turns into a game you’ve bested too many times. There’s no challenge left, no thrill, and the desires all blur together…”

Aaron’s expression goes flat and unreadable in a truly scary way. “So, you profiled me… and became what you thought I wanted?”

“No,” Spencer’s voice takes on a note of desperation. He’s always been so bad at being himself. “That’s just it – I _didn’t_ do that with you. I mean, yes, I did a read that first day in the café, but I didn’t… invent a personality you’d like. I was just… me. Maybe I thought… maybe… it was a random moment. There wasn’t time to invent a mask.”

Aaron rolls away and stares at the ceiling. Spencer’s stomach lurches in panic. Why did he have to tell him any of that? Why admit to being a throwaway person, a fantasy plaything for so many? Why would Aaron want to be around someone as hollow as that?

“I didn’t lie about anything with you, Aaron. Well… just lies of omission about the change. But everything else was real. I told you I worked for the NSA, and I do – and I could get fired for that. I told you about how I have no connections and that I’m always leaving people – and I’ve never admitted that to anyone because… well, it’s just _pathetic_ and who wants to seem pathetic? And this, this sort of nervous babbling I’m doing RIGHT NOW is exactly the sort of behavior that marked me as ‘weird’ and ‘friendless’ when I was a kid. There’s no reason to do it if I was trying to impress you – it’s just who I am and I can’t _help it_ … And I swear I wasn’t playing you, Aaron, I _swear_ that it was really me who made you break into Georgetown and nearly get arrested. Only someone as clueless as me could think that was a good idea for a night out-”

“Hey, hey…” Aaron’s hands clutch his arms and gently shake him. He focuses and sees Aaron’s eyebrows squiggle with concern. “Calm down a little. I believe you, okay? I don’t know why but I do. It’s just a lot to take in… you keep dropping bombs on me…”

“Sorry… sorry…” Spencer gulps. “I do that – I spiral sometimes. See? That’s why I become other people. Who I am isn’t much fun.”

“Stop that,” Aaron says harshly, one hand coming up and pointing at him. Spencer smiles through his panic.

“I’m always ‘me’ with you, Aaron,” he mumbles. “And I want to keep being ‘me’. That’s why I had to find you again. That’s why I had to expose all of this to you. To see… if who I am is good enough to make you stay.”

“Good enough to make me stay?” Aaron whispers incredulously. “Jesus, Spencer. The way you see yourself isn’t how you really are.”

And Spencer has nothing to say to that. The statement blows out a circuit in his brain and he lies there, silently staring in wonder, as he waits for his mind to recover.

“How am I really?” he whispers eventually. Aaron wiggles into his pillow a little, like he’s settling in.

“I’m not entirely sure yet. But we’ll find out,” he rumbles. “You’re not a mask. That I know for certain.”

Spencer smiles and Aaron looks puzzled. Spencer reaches for Aaron’s hand and holds it, resting their linked fingers on the mattress between them.

“Aaron?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s okay if you’re not here when I wake up.”

“What?”

Spencer squeezes his hand and smiles harder, feeling as solid as he’s ever been in his strange, brief life. “When you see me change, when it settles in what this really entails… it’s okay if you find you’re not up for it. Coming here tonight, talking about all of this… something has switched in me. I’m going to keep being me from now on. Escape is an illusion. I might as well aim for real moments – like this one. That won’t change if you go. Just… know that, okay? I’ll be alright. I feel it.”

Aaron’s face transforms into a tremendous scowl that brings out lines Spencer didn’t even think were possible in facial musculature. But when he speaks, his voice is soft and soothing.

“Stop talking shit, Spence. Just… go to sleep and stop scaring the hell out of me for a while, okay?”

Spencer pushes his smile into his pillow and breathes in the scent of fabric softener. Inside, he’s filled with a sudden flash of burning joy for this. He has a friend. A stupid, stubborn, scowling friend, and it’s amazing.

“You’re going to be a tough friend to have. I can see it now,” Aaron grumbles across the pillows, but when Spencer shifts to look at him, Aaron is smiling back like he’s lit with the same joy.

“Yep,” Spencer murmurs.

He tries to stay awake, to prolong this quiet, dark night with Aaron. But sleep pulls him away. Before he drifts beyond the room, and the friend lying next to him, he whispers “Don’t be afraid”. He’s not sure if he’s saying it to Aaron or himself, but chances are, it’s both.

 

It’s still dark when he wakes, and he is alone. The space next to him is creased but empty. He reaches out and the sheets are cool.

“No…” he gags quietly, pulse rocketing from sleep to panic too quickly and making him see motes in the corners of his vision.

It wasn’t a dream. Aaron was _there._ But now he’s not. Did he take Spencer up on his offer? Did he try but couldn’t face what Spencer turned into in the night? Or did he wait until Spencer drifted off before sneaking away, the bellowing silence of the house telling him all the reasons why he had to flee again?

Spencer stumbles from the bed, tripping on the blankets and landing on the floor with a thud. He smacks his chin and the shock of the pain sends electricity through him that dispels some of his panic. He just can’t lie there anymore – he has to move. No matter what happens now, he can’t give into despair again. He will _not_ become his mother.

He stumbles down the hall, past his office, to the living room, but everything is dim and quiet. It’s still far too early.

“Aaron?”

Nothing.

He goes to the front door and finds the security alarm still active. He feels his brow crease in confusion.

“How did you get out?”

He turns back again. There’s a sliver of light streaming across the far wall of his living room. He follows it blindly, seeing that it’s peeking through the doorway to the kitchen. Then he hears muffled tinkling and the sound of water. He pushes through and tells himself it’s okay to breathe again. Aaron has his back to him, fussing with something on the counter top, his dress pants and shirt hopelessly wrinkled and with a spectacular case of bedhead.

“There you are.”

Aaron jumps and turns quickly, expression shocked while holding a measuring cup for the open bag of coffee on the counter. His eyes find Spencer and get comically huge.

“I thought you’d left. Thought you couldn’t handle it,” Spencer babbles, knowing that he’s grinning inappropriately and can’t make himself stop. “But you didn’t. You’re here – thank you.”

His heart is racing, he can’t breathe. He pats his chest and takes a tremendous breath in, still smiling like a deranged fool.

“Sorry… freaked out a little. Just need to catch my breath… One sec.” He holds up a finger and focuses on oxygen for an instant. Then he realizes that Aaron is still frozen in shock. “Hey. What is it?”

Aaron swallows hard enough to be seen from across the kitchen. He lifts the measuring cup like it’s the answer to Spencer’s question. “I was nodding off – decided to make some coffee…”

“Oh. Sounds good. Can you make enough for two?” Spencer keeps smiling but Aaron just stares. He seems paralyzed. Spencer’s only just got his breath back, but his pulse takes off again. “Aaron, what’s wrong?”

“You… you changed…”

“Oh. And you missed it, huh? Sorry.” That explains a lot. Aaron has a new face to deal with, and they’ll have to try again in three days’ time. “I guess it happens quickly. That’s new information we didn’t have before.”

Aaron doesn’t say anything, his eyes flicking all over Spencer like he’s impossible to take in. It makes Spencer unsettled. Is he that ugly? Deformed somehow? He looks down and sees that he’s male, and tall. His clothes from his previous face are both too short and too wide for this new body.

“Hmmm, gotta find something to wear…” he murmurs.

“Spencer,” Aaron breathes and it sounds like it’s choking him. Spencer looks up into that still-shocked expression. “Have you… looked in a mirror yet?”

Spencer’s body goes cold in an instant. “No. Why?” His eyes scan the kitchen for reflective surfaces, his heart launching into the back of his throat with dread. He spots the microwave and rushes over to it, it’s darkened door making an adequate mirror in the dim kitchen.

And he recognizes the face looking back at him. 

He holds his breath as he runs his fingers across the square jaw, over the smudges under his wide, earnest eyes. Hair flops into his face, curls artfully around his ears, tickles his neck. He pulls his hands away from him and stares at them as well: big hands, long fingers, expressive… They skim down his inappropriately-dressed body. He’s tall, thin, boney as hell…

That’s when he starts to hyperventilate. 

“Can’t… doesn’t… don’t… understand… fuck, can’tbreathe…”

Suddenly, Aaron’s there, bracing his arms and pushing him back against the counter top. “Easy, Spence… don’t think, just breathe. Just in and hold it, then out again slowly… c’mon, you can do this.”

He’s wheezing, curled into the grip that holding him upright. He wants to think - _he has to think!_ \- but his body is rioting. 

“Just breathe,” Aaron keeps chanting in that inviting way of his. Yeah, breathing’s good, breathing’s cool. Let’s do that for a while…

He keeps wheezing, Aaron keeps chanting, and slowly, his vision clears and his pulse settles to something excited rather than life-threatening. He’s collapsed against Aaron’s chest, and he’s pleasantly warm and a little musky from having spent too long in his clothes. Somehow, it’s grounding, and Spencer breathes deeply, to take more of that strange calm within him. Aaron’s hands wrap around his back and hold Spencer close.

“I thought you said this never happened,” he mumbles. “Never the same face twice.”

“It never has,” he leans away far enough to focus on Aaron’s eyes, still a little shocked. “I don’t know what this means, Aaron. I really don’t.”

Aaron watches him for a long, tense moment. “It’s… it’s not _your_ face, is it?”

Spencer shakes his head. “I was never this pretty. Never going to be either.”

Aaron smiles, a hand rising to cup the outline of a surprisingly strong jaw.

“Are you scared of me now?” Spencer whispers as Aaron continues to stare. Aaron’s smile fades.

“No. No, I’m not. There’s nothing threatening in this.” He glances off into space for a moment, doing a gut check. “No, this doesn’t ping any of my professional instincts.”

“You’re not…” Spencer gulps hard to get around the knot in his chest. “…frightened that I’m staring out at you from a face that shouldn’t exist anymore?”

And Aaron’s smile returns, warm and indulgent. He pulls back a little and acts as if he’s giving Spencer a critical once-over. “It’s a nice face,” he concludes softly, and then pulls Spencer into his shoulder once more as they hold onto each other. “It’s good to see it again.”


	10. Friday, February 2

It’s Groundhog Day and Aaron’s trying not to read anything into that. He’s also lying on a rooftop in the middle of winter, staring at the stars, and doing everything in his power _not_ to fall in love. Spencer is lying next to him, one hand free from the camping blanket they’re both wrapped up in, gesticulating wildly up to the sky peeking through the thick branches of the oak tree that overhangs the house. He’s talking about the stars and their constancy, and that the sky has changed so little from the time when where they are was nothing more than unruly, unclaimed forest on Iroquois land. Spencer talks a lot if you let him, and Aaron lets him, too overwhelmed by this new, excited feeling that he knows is deepening at a dangerous rate.

But it can’t happen. He has to find a way to make it stop, to turn it into friendship instead. Spencer _changes_. It’s not his fault, but how is Aaron ever going to keep up with that? Especially when the way he looks right now has _done something_ irreversible to Aaron. So, he’s on a roof on a cold, clear night with another human who might be magic, and wondering how his sensible, ordered life came to this chaotic, improbable point.

Spencer glances over at him, and his enthusiasm fades a little as he quickly ducks his hand back under the blanket.

“Sorry. I’m talking too much, aren’t I?” Spencer says, eyes glancing from Aaron’s. “You could say something, you know, when I’m being boring…”

“You’re not boring,” Aaron responds, too softly and has to clear his throat to make his voice firmer. _Not falling…_ “I don’t know much about this subject, so I have to listen.”

He’s freezing his ass off because Spencer is anything but boring to him. This guy could ask him to free climb the Capitol building right now, and he’d consider it. He has to be very, very careful with this man. Spencer smiles shyly at him and that doesn’t help matters.

“Well, you could talk about something,” he says. “Tell me about what you do.”

Aaron sighs. “I know about the law and aberrant psychology. It’s both boring and off-putting. Not great for conversation.”

“Then tell me what you’re thinking about right now. I’m sure it’s not criminal statutes or psychopaths. Unless you’ve decided I’m a psychopath…” Spencer chuckles and it makes these amazing lines appear around his mouth.

_Stop looking at his mouth, and for chrissakes don’t tell him what you’re actually thinking…_

“I’m… trying to decide what happens next,” he says after a long pause. _Great. So much for trying to keep this simple…_

Spencer looks concerned and rolls towards him a little, propping his head on a folded arm in the mess of blankets. “And? What have you decided?”

Aaron sighs again, wishing it was just a crisis of sexuality he was dealing with. “I like you – this version of you – very much. I liked it before, and I like it even more now. We’ve spent a whole day getting to know each other, just the two of us, and I should be exhausted by it, but I’m not. I am… compelled to be here. But I’m also worried about that.”

He waits, and then Spencer blinks and asks, “What are you worried about?”

“How your condition might alter that compulsion.”

Spencer nods and glances away as his features melt into a mask of nothingness.

“It’s not that I didn’t care about you when you wore your previous face – I did. But _this face_ makes me care so much more. It’s…” He can’t think of the right way to say it.

“It’s exciting,” Spencer says simply, eyes wide and hurt.

Aaron shrugs. No point in denying it. “The change is so dramatic. What if the next change is equally dramatic, but in a different direction? And… and I don’t want this to come down to how you look, Spence. That’s so insulting to you. I mean, this isn’t even your face… I’m just trying to adjust my thinking. But it’s hard, I’m not going to lie about that.”

“But… we agreed. It’s just friendship. I’m not asking for anything more, Aaron. I know I can’t,” Spencer’s voice is quiet and a little scared, as if Aaron might run away again and break his word. Aaron reaches for Spencer’s hand through the blanket and Spencer’s fingers squeeze back when they meet.

“And you have my friendship. I promise,” Aaron murmurs and Spencer’s fright recedes a little. “I just wasn’t prepared to see this face again. I didn’t expect to react so strongly.”

“Well,” Spencer swallows noticeably. “You could leave. I’ll change in two days – you could come back after that. You don’t have to stay here and battle your confusion for my sake. I’m used to being on my own – I can handle it a while longer. And you have a child and a job. I haven’t even asked you why you’re still here and haven’t called anyone yet…”

“Jack’s spending a week with his aunt and grandfather. My house is empty,” Aaron waves it away. “And I was so distracted after you revealed yourself that I took some time off to clear my head. My superior was delighted: I haven’t voluntarily taken vacation time in nearly five years. I’m not very good without work in my life…”

“Sounds like you need to learn how to be with yourself. This might be an opportunity to do that.”

Spencer is sounding so reasonable. But Aaron wants to hold onto him; he’s afraid not to. That’s when it hits him.

“You’re going to disappear,” he gulps.

Spencer’s hand releases his and then flashes out of the blanket to clasp his jaw instead. His expression gets as serious as Aaron has ever seen. “Just a part of me will go, most of me will still be here, Aaron. Always. You promised that I wouldn’t be alone anymore. Well, I give you the same promise back. My face will change – yes – but I’ll still be the guy who knows those things about you that aren’t in your files.” 

“My files?”

Spencer’s face colors in the twilight. “I looked into you after we stopped talking. Your history, your public records… I wanted to know more about you.”

“You _hacked_ me?”

Spencer rolls his eyes. “It was hardly hacking, and I’m a tech guy so it was sorta bound to happen eventually. You’d be surprised how much info was already in the public domain. I may have had to use my skills when it came to cracking the BAU stuff-”

“ _You hacked the Bureau?_ ”

“Not the Bureau, the BAU firewall and server, which was impressively fortified, by the way. I assume that’s thanks to your technical analyst – she’s good.”

“Garcia will not take that as a compliment. And neither do I.”

“Listen,” Spencer’s voice takes on a pleading tone. “I was deciding if I should tell you about myself, so I needed to know more about you. And what I discovered was that the version of you that lives on paper doesn’t resemble the man I met at all. That gave me great pause. In your files you are driven, self-assured, stoic in the extreme, unflinching… but the man I met was lonely, empathetic, funny, charming, complex. It didn’t make any sense to me. Then I thought about how I am with people, about the masks I wear and the roles I play, and that’s when I got frightened.”

“Frightened?” Aaron breathes. “Why?”

“Because you’re a profiler, apparently one of the best the Bureau’s ever had. If I could read and respond to someone, surely you could too and so much better than me. All I could think about was that the man I knew was a mask you wore, and the Aaron Hotchner in all the files I read was who you really were. _That_ man wasn’t someone I could reveal my secret to.”

“But… you did reveal it…”

Spencer nods slowly. “I took a gamble because your isolation felt real to me, as real as my own. As it turns out, I was right about you wearing an effective mask. I was just wrong about _when_ you were wearing it.”

Aaron doesn’t know what to say. He feels like Spencer is slowly, unknowingly peeling away his defenses. It’s terrifying, and also what he’s been quietly hoping for. But this desire won’t help him wrestle control over the situation. He _cannot_ fall. And how could someone he’s met a handful of times figure out the version of him that he’s kept hidden for decades so quickly?

“Are you okay?” Spencer’s worried voice breaks through his internal chaos.

“You are intense,” he mutters without thinking. Spencer doesn’t react, and that says volumes in itself.

“It’s okay to leave,” he says eventually.

Aaron shakes his head. “I don’t want to miss… any of this.” 

It comes out painfully, quietly, like he’s ripping it from him, and Aaron’s face heats with embarrassment. No one is this desperate for a friend – his emotions are too obvious. When did he become _this_ man? Is this who he really wants to be?

He looks up into Spencer’s now-hazel eyes, the gaze huge and riveted to Aaron. He doesn’t say anything, his expression halfway between guilt and shock. He shuffles a little closer in their shared blanket. Aaron holds his breath, ignoring the way the roof is making his back ache – he can’t look away from Spencer. Then, Spencer’s eyes quickly flick to Aaron’s lips and then away, and Aaron’s whole body fires with excitement that is in no way friendly.

“I’m cold,” Aaron blurts, his lizard brain somehow thinking that Spencer will choose to solve this with his mouth and hands and body. But he goes another way.

“Let’s go inside,” he whispers, and then sits up out of the blanket before Aaron can process it. “Who sits on a roof in February? You are already too indulgent of my weirdness, Aaron…”

Maybe that’s his problem in a nutshell: he wants to be indulgent with Spencer. He doesn’t feel that way about anyone else except Jack, and indulging Jack is a joy. Indulging Spencer doesn’t feel that way – it feels dangerous and potentially fatal, and he can’t figure out why he wants it so badly. The compulsion niggles at him, as if it has roots deep within him. He rolls that thought over inside him, he thinks back…

“I kissed Dan,” he whispers to himself. It comes out shocked, and when he looks up at Spencer, the shock is there as well. “Once. Just once.”

He forces himself to sit up too, sliding out of the blanket and the cold night air snapping him back to his senses a little. He can feel Spencer’s eyes following him, but he doesn’t say a thing. Aaron takes a long moment to settle from the shock of this lost memory. Had he pushed it aside, or is that just how memory works? Thinking on it now, it feels like an old movie: yellowed around the edges of the celluloid and the transition all jumpy and brittle.

“I… things had been bad at home that day,” Aaron chokes out, staring at his hands in his lap. “I was angry, upset. I was always so scared when I felt that kind of anger… it reminded me of Dad and… it felt like he was expanding inside me, like I was becoming him somehow.” 

Aaron shakes his head, trying to focus as the memory jumps frames again. “Dan found me in a field we used to hang out in sometimes. He made me talk about what happened. I got agitated – I lashed out at him for making me say the words aloud. If I never spoke of it, I could pretend it didn’t really affect me. But Dan wouldn’t let it go. He was always saying ‘Aar, spit it out before that bastard chokes you to death’…”

He hears a sigh next to him on the roof, but he can’t make himself look. The dissonance of being caught between worlds, between times, feels paralyzing. All he can do is talk…

“So, I told him. All the shit Dad pulled that no one in town saw. And I felt so ugly and tainted afterwards – I hated Dan for making me do that. It didn’t make me feel better or lighter in any way, and I never told anyone about it again. Not with that kind of honesty – not even Haley. After we moved away, she considered the matter dealt with and didn’t want to talk about it further. She was good at compartmentalizing when she needed to.”

He laughs bitterly, and then feels ashamed. She’s dead and gone, he should strive to only remember her better qualities.

“I kept asking Dan why he made me do it. I remember crying and feeling rage for seeming so weak. All he said was ‘Because I had to’, and he held me even though I fought him on it. Eventually, I exhausted myself and we just sat there against a fencepost in an abandoned field huddled together.”

He breathes roughly, and it is as painful as it sounds. He’s shivering from the cold as well but can’t really feel it.

“I don’t know what Dan’s story was – why he was so tuned into my misery. I never asked. Maybe he was in pain too and I missed it. Anyway, after a while, after I drained everything out of me, I could finally look him in the eye again and he just… smiled. Like I was still the same guy to him. I couldn’t believe it. It lit something in me – something traitorous – and… I kissed him. I don’t know if that had always been in me or not. But the moment I did it, I knew I was wrong about Dan.”

There’s a long period of silence on the roof with only the wind stretching through the naked tree branches to break it up.

“Wrong about him how?” Spencer whispers.

Aaron looks at him finally, and he’s shocked and wary and so, so pale in the gloom.

“Whatever he felt for me, it wasn’t _that._ I’m lucky he didn’t haul off and beat me, or tell everyone about it. A confused kid in rural Virginia in the 1980s… it would’ve been a death sentence from all quarters, not just my Dad.”

“So… you thought you were gay back then?” Spencer’s voice is curious but also doubtful.

“No, I never used that term in my mind or applied it to myself. I had girlfriends, I did ‘guy’ things, and I was genuinely interested in them. But, that day, there was no doubt in my mind that I was _different_ , and although Dan let it exist and sometimes encouraged it, he didn’t have that difference within him. This exposure he brought out in me – the days in the theater, the dreams we had of escape and freedom – it seemed like dangerous fragility to me, and I knew I needed to be strong to get away from that place and my family.”

He stops, thinking about if he ever made the conscious choice to change. So few of the choices in our lives are truly weighed out and considered ahead of time. 

“And so, that’s what I became. All those things you read about in my files. _That’s_ who I made myself be to escape the weakness that scared the hell out of me that day in the field with Dan.”

The wind continues blowing.

“Why are you telling me this?” Spencer whispers.

“Because… you bring out that weakness in me too,” Aaron gasps, holds his breath, tries to marshal some control again. “You describe my professional success and achievements as a mask, and, suddenly I’m forced to wonder if you’re right. Was the broken kid in that field at sixteen who I was meant to be? Have I been pushing him away for over thirty years?”

He takes another beat to collect what he wants to say. He closes his eyes and grits it out. “I want to run away from this – from you – like I’ve been doing my whole life, because I’m still scared of it like I was that day. But I also want to stay because… I don’t want to miss a moment. It feels like… I can finally breathe again. But it’s not that simple. Moments are all you and I can have. And it’s _not_ friendly, not when you look the way you do now. And it’s dangerous and happening far too quickly. It feels like an addiction. It feels like something that I could break myself on.”

He opens his eyes and looks at Spencer, who’s frozen in place, hair ruffled by the winter wind. Aaron hopes it’s dark enough that Spencer can’t see the desperation that he knows he isn’t hiding in this moment. This is never going to work; they both _need_ too much. They should just mutually walk away from each other.

“I’m not going to kiss you,” Spencer murmurs after a long, painful moment, and anger flares in Aaron that he’s been rejected after baring his weakness so blatantly. But he’s also furious that he knows it’s the right decision. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to, Aaron.”

His eyes snap back to Spencer’s as his flash of anger melts into confusion.

“It would be too easy to do,” Spencer continues softly. “And it would be wrong to do it when you see what’s driving you towards it as something weak or broken. Because it’s not. To me it’s beautiful.”

He lets that word hang between them as he shuffles onto his knees and tries tugging the blanket from around Aaron. Aaron just blinks uselessly, not helping to pack up, with his mouth hanging open ungraciously.

“But you need to see that for yourself. I’m sure that’s what Dan was trying to get you to do in his own way. But kids are clumsy and it went a different way on him.” Spencer shrugs, finally frees the blanket and stands fearlessly on the windy roof folding the fabric. “C’mon, get up. Let’s get out of this wind.”

Aaron can’t move if his life depended on it. “Spencer, how can this _possibly_ work out?” Spencer snaps his head back to look at him. “It’s obvious we both want more than friendship…” he mutters on glumly.

“I don’t know right now,” Spencer sighs and flaps a hand around in frustration. “But we’re not clueless teenagers in a field. We’re adults, and seasoned, and allegedly smart, so… we’ll find our way to something we can handle. I don’t have the answers, Aaron, but I have a friend for the first time in a decade and I’m giving you notice now that I’m gonna fight like hell to keep him.”

He waits and then holds out his hand to Aaron. Aaron stares at it for a moment, then slides his palm across Spencer’s as he gets yanked to his feet on the roof. They bump together but Spencer quickly backs off to give him room. Aaron sadly thinks that Spencer’s rescinded the invitation to be close with him.

“We’ll figure it out,” he reiterates quietly, like it’s a promise he’s making to himself more than to Aaron.

“Okay,” Aaron huffs and then concentrates on getting off the roof in the dark. He tries to let it go like he should’ve done before they found each other again, but he realizes it’s already too late for that. If his fall had been a physical act, he’d already be broken and mangled on Spencer’s front lawn.

\---- 

They spend a second day together, with just a brief trip home for Aaron to get fresh clothes and to clean up, restocking his go bag in the process. They spend time getting to know each other. He’s never talked so much in his life, not in one, uninterrupted session, anyway. He learns about Spencer’s distant family (he’s not family-less as he suggested earlier). He talks about aunts and uncles he hasn’t seen since he was four, step siblings he’s never met, and there’s a brief, bitter diatribe about his dead father. Aaron can’t blame him there: in the history of abusive fathers, Spencer’s may not have beaten him, but he did significant damage nonetheless. When Spencer speaks of his mother though, his tone becomes both warm and weary. He speaks of the last time he saw her and it comes out as _the last time_ even though she’s still alive.

“Spencer, why don’t you call her or something?”

“My voice isn’t what she remembers,” he says softly.

“You could explain it. She’s an educated woman…”

“She’s schizophrenic, Aaron,” he corrects tiredly. “I can barely explain this to myself.”

Aaron feels close to the edge of something thorny in Spencer, but he pushes one last time. “Then write her a letter. Your handwriting doesn’t change, does it?”

Spencer looks at him in surprise, but doesn’t say anything. Aaron nods once and drops the matter. 

Aaron talks about going to college, the coming of age that came with moving away from a small town and becoming anonymous in a much, much larger one. He admits to one semester in the Liberal Arts where he took figure drawing for the thrill of being in rooms with naked strangers, and poetry in order to be acceptably sensitive. Spencer grins, all toothy and delighted like a child, and Aaron asks him why he’s so gleeful.

“Did you ever want to model?” Spencer asks. Aaron’s eyebrows try to leap off his forehead. “Some people get the bug when they take those classes and try it out.”

“Why are you asking?” Aaron says cautiously, and Spencer wiggles up from the couch, disappears, and returns with a folio full of random drawings. 

They are all incredibly weird. Ink and watercolor and charcoal and something that looks like crushed Crayolas. All spidery and elongated with stark outlines and delicate colors. They are beautiful, dreamlike, stark – Aaron loves them and says so as Spencer’s cheeks go pink.

“When did you learn?” he asks, flipping page after page with reverence. 

“I don’t remember learning. I never took classes at any rate. I’ve just always done it.” Spencer pauses. “You don’t think they’re ugly? Or basic?”

“No,” Aaron looks up quickly. “They are distinctive, definitely. But not ugly. Never. Look at the joy in them?” Aaron points at the one in his hand. It’s a strange creature in a hat on a skateboard that defies the laws of physics. “How could you find joy ugly?”

Spencer smiles again, his face turning almost red. “Thanks. Maybe you would… let me draw you sometime. You know… if you want to…”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Aaron smirks, going back to the folio. “I’m sure my portrait-pretty days are well behind me.”

“I don’t think so,” Spencer says almost inaudibly and when Aaron looks back at him, he’s acting as if he’s said nothing. Aaron decides then and there that Spencer doesn’t know when to turn off the flirting he’s lived most of his adulthood by.

They wander back to safer topics. Aaron ends up rambling on about Jack, letting his pride out to stretch its legs as he spools out story after story. After a while, he snaps out of it and realizes he’s been doing it for a long time.

“I’m sorry. I’m going on and on about my son. No one finds a child as delightful as its parents. I hate when people do this, and here I am… doing it.”

“It’s actually insightful,” Spencer murmurs, his gaze unfocused, head tilted like he’s analyzing the word choices. It makes Aaron a little nervous – he’s forgotten that Spencer is uncanny at this. “You’re not just proud or affectionate, you admire Jack. That’s quite startling, to admire a boy. And it says a lot about the parenting choices both you and your wife made. You clearly set out to raise this child with a surfeit of love. You made a choice to stand apart from your family history.” Spencer whispers the last part. “You should be proud of that too.”

Aaron finds that he doesn’t know how to respond to this; Spencer just keeps peeling away at him. “Haley deserves the credit. I was gone so much when he was younger. She wanted him to be open and generous, and she loved him so much…”

“And you didn’t? Aaron, it wasn’t all your wife’s doing. Maybe you weren’t around as much as you’d like but now she’s gone… well, Jack seems to be blooming still, isn’t he? That’s on you.”

“Jesus, Spence…”

“What?”

“You just…” Aaron sighs. “You have no idea how stuff like that gets to me.”

“Oh,” he pauses. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m just bad at accepting compliments, I guess.” Aaron tries to smile, but Spencer doesn’t seem convinced.

“I’ll say…” he huffs and it makes Aaron laugh. Spencer’s eyebrows pop up and he curls into a surprised, cautious smile.

“Listen, let me make it up to you. Let me cook something. I can honestly say I’m good at that.”

Spencer shakes his head adamantly. “No way. You’re a guest in my house. Manners dictate that I cook.”

“Spence… manners? What?”

His face gets mock-serious and he taps a finger on the coffee table with authority. “This is important. There’s no way Mom would ever know I failed in this area, but still, I won’t. She raised a well-mannered young man and I won’t have anything else implied. Besides, you don’t know where I keep all of my ladles and spatulas and mandolines…”

“Mandolines? Do you have more than one? Okay, well, if you’re gonna show off an’ stuff, have at it.” Aaron is grinning and it breaks Spencer’s fake umbrage in half. He grins back and then bounces up from the couch.

“This will be interesting,” he gusts. “I’ve never had to cook for more than one person before…”

Aaron finds that sad but Spencer is nothing but excited at the idea.

He cooks as manically as he does everything else, and with just as much success. He leaps around his kitchen like a demented wind-up toy, always on the verge of crashing and disaster, while Aaron sits and watches halfway between delight and terror. Spencer rambles the whole time – about the history of sauces, the difference between gravy and jus, and various unappetizing stories about medieval delicacies. Aaron laughs and sips his wine, commenting very little and just being swept up in the whirlwind of Spencer in his natural environment. He is _not_ , Aaron realizes, the casual, engaging stranger he met in that run-down café. He is hyper-observant, focused, whimsical, and always moving a half step faster than anyone he meets. Aaron understood beforehand that he was smart – his job and PhDs prove that – but he had no idea until now just how deep his intelligence runs. He appears interested in _everything_. To him, knowledge is a joy that produces a euphoria that others might get from sex or drugs. He’s addicted to it, and Aaron is forced to silently wonder how any person could possibly distract him more effectively. Spencer’s made no secret of the fact that he needs sex, but Aaron wonders if it’s just a need he fulfills and moves on from, as if people are passing shadows in the light of his enormous intellect. Maybe that’s what Aaron is too – needed, yes – but still just an interesting shadow on the periphery. 

The meal is deceptively simple and amazing. Aaron leaves off talking in favor of enjoying one of the finest risottos he’s ever had. In the end, the lack of conversation doesn’t matter as Spencer continues reeling out story after story, his fork flourishing in the air around him more than doing what it’s intended to do. He’s halfway into a story about his boss – a man named Jeff who has an unsavory sense of humor that Spencer claims is ‘mostly harmless, except for all that stuff he did when he was with the CIA’ – when he magically produces some panna cotta from his fridge.

Aaron’s eyebrows quirk. “Now, I know you didn’t just whip that up…”

Spencer shrugs and smiles. “I have a sweet tooth. Desserts are my favorite part of any meal.”

“Yes, I’ve seen how much sugar you put in your coffee,” Aaron says dryly. “It’s a wonder that you ever get any sleep with the constant mainlining of sugar you do.”

“Honestly, if it weren’t for the condition, I think I’d be an insomniac. I never slept much as a kid.”

The panna cotta produces a shameful moan from Aaron, and when Spencer makes him an espresso to join it with an obscene amount of crema, Aaron wonders if he’s being unconsciously seduced with food.

“I take it back: I can’t cook at all. Not like this,” Aaron smiles when Spencer sits up straighter and glows under the praise. “I mean, if you want a kickass marinara or Grandma’s secret meatloaf, I’m your guy. And barbeque. I’m a fiend at grilling.”

“Well, see? We all have our strengths,” Spencer chuckles as he collects the dessert plates. “I don’t get the barbeque culture in America. I don’t understand… _smoking_ …” He makes airy gestures around the word like it’s nuclear physics or something. Aaron barks out laughter at the idea that molasses and sugar might have tripped up his big brain. 

“I can teach you that,” he grins. “I’d be honored to add to the collected gastronomical knowledge of…” He stops and blinks a few times.

“What is it?”

“Spencer,” Aaron says quietly. “I don’t even know your last name.”

“Oh.” It’s Spencer’s turn to blink as he places dishes in his sink. “Well, it’s Reid, with an i. Dr. Spencer Reid.” A beat passes between them and then he turns back to face Aaron. “I’ve never told anyone that face to face. Introduced myself, I mean. How bizarre.”

Aaron stands, feeling something pulling from somewhere behind his sternum. He fumbles around, frightened by the warmth and power of that pull, and then grabs his coffee cup to give his hands something to do. Then he shuffles to the sink next to Spencer like it’s nothing at all.

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Doctor,” he rumbles softly as he places his cup in the sink. He means it more than he thinks Spencer understands. This meal, this day, he’s seen a fraction of who Spencer really is, and it hasn’t lessened his compulsion or softened his fall at all.

He’s standing too close and he knows it. He can feel Spencer’s heat against his shirt. Spencer just watches him for a moment, a little unsure, and then he chokes out, “I-It’s a pleasure to meet you as well.”

Aaron just stands there, staring. _He’s beautiful,_ he thinks, and then, _you need to decide about this – no waffling back and forth…_ Spencer’s eyes have gotten wide and worried, a blush slowly creeping up his throat. Aaron retracts his hand from the sink, brushing Spencer’s arm unabashedly in the process. He rests his hand on the sink’s edge, his fingertips a hair’s breadth away from Spencer’s.

“Allow me to do the dishes?”

Spencer blinks, clearly not expecting that. “Oh, uh… not necessary…”

“C’mon. You cooked. I should clean. It’s only polite, Spencer.” He’s enjoying Spencer’s befuddlement a little too much.

“But I, uh… have a dishwasher,” he stutters, then regains some confidence and gives Aaron a shrug. “I’m not a heathen.”

Aaron gives him a soft smile and a shrug of his own. “Oh well. I tried.” And he really did.

He leans in and places a gentle kiss on Spencer’s lips.

It’s longer than a peck, and less than something more meaningful, and when they part Spencer takes a half step back and stares at Aaron with a locked down expression of nothingness. The pull in Aaron’s chest gets tighter, more urgent, and he wars against it for a split second, wondering what that looks like on him. Spencer just watches, whatever he sees somehow capturing his focus, and then Aaron decides. He leans hard on the hand resting along the sink and closes the distance between them again. This time his lips find Spencer’s with greater confidence, feeling warm and soft and grounded as he pushes in. Spencer gasps, and Aaron catches his lower lip, quickly but gently, and pulls it between his. And Spencer hums – just a small note of surprise that disappears almost as quickly as it begins – but he doesn’t move a muscle. Aaron lingers, holding with only a soft, tenuous pull of his lips. It’s nothing close to the way he really wants to hold him. But then he lets Spencer slip free, breathing shallowly and staring at his parted lips. 

_You’re beautiful. I’ve got to believe that it’s more than just your face._

He waits. After everything he’s said over the last two days, he has to. Spencer has a choice to make as well. And then Spencer steps closer, cups Aaron’s jaw and pulls him in. It’s stronger than before, but not frantic or hurried. They pull at each other and roam, slipping free with tiny gasps and then catching each other again almost instantly. Aaron’s hand finds Spencer’s hip and anchors him close, the movement causing Spencer to murmur something soft and unintelligible into the kiss. Aaron doesn’t know how long it goes on, but when they separate with a gentle pop, he’s dangerously weightless and lightheaded. Spencer is breathing a little too heavily with his hand still holding Aaron’s jaw in the slightest of grips in case Aaron decides to break free. They stare at each other.

“I thought you said kissing me would be too easy,” Aaron whispers.

“I didn’t kiss you. Just returned yours. Being polite.”

There’s another moment that passes before either of them react, then Aaron feels the smile bloom across him and change his whole face. Spencer grins when they both lean in this time. And Aaron finally gets to hold him the way he wants, arms wrapped across his back and pulling him against his chest. Spencer slides his fingers into Aaron’s hair – something he’s never experienced before and never with hands so broad and curious. It gets more heated from there, with no space between them any longer and a mutual, unspoken agreement to let it happen and see where it goes. Spencer nips, Aaron gasping in surprise, and then Spencer pushing in with authority. Then it’s a new world for Aaron, narrowing to a few supersensitive square inches and the riot it produces in him. There’s nothing but stuttered breathing and cinched fabric and a single, lonely moan that could have come from either of them. Spencer is lulling him with pull after pull, until Aaron feels stupefied, sinking under the swell of his lips and letting himself go liquid. He wants it to go on and on – he doesn’t care about sex – he just wants this. THIS.

“Spence…” he whimpers, and Spencer pulls back with a wet slip of his lips, a worried look creasing his features.

“What?”

“You’re magic,” Aaron chokes, embarrassed at how exposed he is _again._ “Not just your face. All of you.”

Spencer looks dumbfounded. “No, I’m not. I’m just a guy.”

“You’re magic to me,” he mumbles before reclaiming Spencer and sealing off his protests.

This time they grapple each other, as if they’ve both been freed of something. Aaron feels himself let go, mentally rolling back into the oncoming tide and letting it crash down, pulling him under without a fight. They’re both moaning, both searching. Spencer’s mouth finds Aaron’s ear and abuses it until it’s hot and tingly; Aaron pushes hard against Spencer’s throat, scoring him with teeth, threatening to do worse with a dark hiss. They are glued to each other, arms becoming restraints they can’t shake loose, heat scorching them where they meet. It’s heady and hard and escalating beyond reason… and then a shrill noise makes them jump apart. Aaron looks around, wild-eyed, clutching the counter to keep him from collapsing on rubbery legs. And the sound happens again. He closes his eyes and swears under his breath. He pulls out his phone.

“I’m sorry,” he wheezes, pleading to a distracted and disturbed Spencer. “It’s work. I have to answer.”

“Oh… yeah, yeah…” Spencer gasps, looking like he doesn’t really understand.

Aaron thumbs the call, feeling defeated. “Hey, Garcia, what’s up? No… no, it’s fine…”

It turns out it’s anything but fine, and that he’s required to slip back under the mask he’s worn for so long.

“Okay. Notify the team. Have them meet at Quantico first – I want to review the materials together beforehand. Then let the airstrip know we’ll need the jet fueled and ready to go in two hours. Thanks, Garcia.”

He hangs up and sighs with his whole body.

“That doesn’t sound good,” Spencer murmurs.

“It’s not. Spree killings in Tennessee.” He looks up at Spencer, irrationally feeling like he’s lost something. “I’ve got to go. I can’t say no.”

Spencer stands up straight, slips into a mask of his own. “Of course, you can’t. Go. It’s fine, Aaron, really.”

“It’s not fine,” he growls, stepping closer, feeling anger at being forced away. “We haven’t had enough _time_ …”

Spencer looks confused. “Aaron, I’ll be here when the case is over. I’m not going anywhere.”

Aaron pulls back, feeling foolish. Spencer’s expression shifts again and he nods knowingly.

“You mean we haven’t had enough time with this face, don’t you?”

Aaron looks away. He hears Spencer sigh.

“Go to Tennessee, Aaron. This can wait until you get back. Do your job. Your life hasn’t changed.”

Aaron’s eyes snap to Spencer’s fiercely. “You’re wrong. My life has absolutely, radically changed.”

Spencer’s mouth falls open but nothing comes out. He ends up shutting it and clearing his throat clumsily while looking anywhere but at Aaron. And the pulling behind Aaron’s ribs becomes excruciating.

“Well… we can’t talk about that now,” Spencer chokes out. “You’re on a clock, right?”

“Yes,” Aaron grits. “I’ll call you when we land. And you can call me. I might not respond right away but-”

“C’mon, Aaron, you don’t have time for that.”

“I’ll. Make. Time.”

Spencer’s eyes meet Aaron’s again and whatever he sees there makes him swallow noticeably. 

“O-okay… sure. Fine.”

“Spence…” Aaron breathes, trying to make himself appear less ferocious. Spencer waves him off, plastering a pleasant smile on instead.

“Go on… go. Seriously. This is life and death, Aaron. You have to get your head back into it, and fast. Don’t worry about…” He shifts a hand about in the air. “…this.”

“I will anyway.”

“Well, okay… hopefully within reason because there’s not much either of us can do about it, is there?” Spencer arches an eyebrow that brings reality crashing back into his spacious kitchen. Aaron realizes he’s right and all his wishing otherwise is just wasted energy.

“Okay,” he mumbles, and then turns to head for the front door, feeling as if he’s running away. He hears Spencer’s footsteps behind him, only stopping as Aaron shrugs into his coat in the front hall. He pivots quickly, trying to marshal his professional disguise.

“I’ll call you,” he grumbles.

“Alright,” Spencer nods non-commitally.

He wants to reach for him, to kiss him again – a goodbye to this face he’ll miss. But he can’t, not as SSAC Aaron Hotchner, and _that’s_ who he has to be for a bunch of victims and frustrated cops in Tennessee. He hesitates, and in that moment, Spencer makes up the difference.

“Go on,” he murmurs. “I’ll see you when you get back. Go bag a killer.”

He offers a lopsided smile and it’s starting to crack Aaron’s heart, so he turns away and launches himself through the door without another word. He’s a coward for leaving it that way, but what else could he do? As he strides across the lawn to his car on the street, he resolves to solve the case efficiently and then come straight back here to resolve _this_ as well. That’s what he wants and he will make it happen.

But it doesn’t quite work out that way.


	11. Days 4,129 – 4,144

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for another delay, but this is one helluva chapter. You'll see...

_\-- Just landed in Knoxville. Staying at the Lampton Inn but won’t be there much. --_

_* Thanks for the update. Good luck. *_

_\-- I’m sorry about leaving so abruptly. There was a lot I wanted to say. But this is what my life is like. --_

_* You don’t need to justify it to me & no apologies are required. Please focus on your case, Aaron. We can talk when you return. *_

_\-- I want you to know I’m not running away from this. --_

_* I never thought you were *_

_\-- I’ve used work to avoid things in the past. I’m not doing that here. I want you to understand that, and that THIS is what you’re getting into with me. Sudden disappearances. --_

_* Noted ;) Now, go to work. *_

 

Spencer gets a few more random texts before he decides to be blunt and tell Aaron _not_ to contact him just to check-in. It feels like an uncomfortably possessive expectation Aaron has developed in his life and suspects it is a hold-over from his marriage. The correlations alone are frightening, because Spencer has never asked for this, nor does he feel their limited time together warrants it. He also worries about the distraction he’s being to Aaron. He’s touched that Aaron wants to talk, especially after the wasn’t-supposed-to-happen-kissing in his kitchen, because, boy, did they need to sort _that_ out. But he doesn’t want to crowd into Aaron’s life, he doesn’t want Aaron to see too much too soon and have the attraction wear off before it goes anywhere. He’s certain that Aaron will find him less appealing as he gets to know him. Whereas Spencer finds himself more fascinated than ever. When Aaron sat next to him on his roof and told him he didn’t want to miss anything…

The shifting identities thing is a huge problem though. Aaron isn’t hiding how attracted he is to the face Spencer’s currently wearing. And he’s also been frank about how those feelings might change as Spencer does. It’s hurtful but honest. And then there’s Aaron’s issues around what he qualifies as his ‘weakness’. The story about Dan came as a shock, though not wholly unexpected. But whether it is sexual confusion Aaron has avoided his entire life, or just emotional transparency, Spencer can’t decide. Either one is a monumental hill to climb and Spencer doesn’t know yet if he has the stamina for it. 

And then there’s just his basic drive: he wants Aaron, and it’s a mindless, consequence-blind kind of want. He wants the experience and the surprise of it, he wants the mess and confusion simply because he’s never had that before. He wants it in the way a child wants things: selfishly and transiently. In that way, it’s like every attraction he’s ever felt and he craves losing himself in it like he always has. Sometimes he’s overcome by this want and wishes that he’d put on a mask that night at the IHOP and dragged Aaron to his bed. It would’ve been nothing close to what he really wanted, but he’d have had something, and Aaron would’ve as well with the face he likes. Spencer usually follows up this thought with a vicious accusation that he’s simply a whore, too needy and naïve to contemplate a personal connection beyond the feral desire to get off. He doesn’t know how to be a person someone desires without changing to suit them.

He’s almost as anxious about his next change as Aaron is when he lays himself down on his third and final night with what he’s come to call ‘Aaron’s face’. He stares at the ceiling waiting for sleep to drag him down, and silently hoping that whoever he becomes next is someone equally appealing. His phone beeps on the table next to the bed.

_\-- I’m thinking of you --_

Spencer smiles as he pulls the phone to him.

_* Thinking of you too *_

_\-- Are you okay? --_

_* I’m just… waiting. You know. *_

_\-- 3rd night. --_

_* Yeah. *_

There’s a significant pause before his phone beeps again.

_\-- Are you worried? --_

_*Of course. What if the next one is… awful? And what about the one after that? And after that? *_

_\-- I don’t have those answers. I don’t want to hurt you, Spence. I’m sorry I’m not more open to all of this. --_

He sighs and recognizes that Aaron is trying, and perhaps trying for something that is beyond both of their reach.

_* No one’s THAT open, Aaron. Identity matters, and it doesn’t just live on the inside. I’m slowly starting to realize that. *_

_\-- It’s weird you should say that. --_

_\-- This killer we’re hunting lost his job, his marriage, and his mother in 13 months. He was stable before that - > now his identity is shattered. It’s as if his loss of self meant that he could become anyone, and the persona he chose was an inconsolable killer. --_

Spencer stares at the text and has a strange flash of connection, like that day in the café when he brazenly told Aaron who he worked for.

_* Should you be discussing this with me? *_

_\-- Probably not. --_

“Interesting,” he mumbles. Aaron expresses intimacy in unexpected ways. It’s no wonder he finds it so difficult.

_* There are varying schools of thought on the malleability of our personalities after adolescence. Some believe we are ‘locked in’ after a certain point, while others suggest that much of our ‘selves’ may be more plastic than we thought, citing case studies that illustrate radical personality changes in later life involving everything from basic quirks to sexual identity. *_

_* There’s also plenty of documentation on individuals classified as psychopaths with clean criminal records who function purposefully within society, defying expectation. If one were to strictly adhere to the definition, however, one would be forced to consider that any of these persons had the potential for unlawful or destructive behavior residing within them. It’s a fascinating argument between scientific classification versus individualism, and also, how labels might, in themselves, give us excuses to hide behind our behaviors. *_

_* Maybe we’re all just a reservoir of infinite masks, waiting for an opportunity. *_

_\-- That’s a horrifying and depressing thought. --_

_\-- Christ, you would’ve made a helluva profiler, Spence… --_

_* -laughing- High praise indeed from ‘Hotch’. That’s what they call you, right? *_

_\-- More hacking? --_

_* It’s not a great nickname *_

_\-- I know. But it stuck. --_

_* I wonder what nickname I’d have… you know, if I ever worked with other people… *_

_\-- Brain Trust. Nerdzilla. Dorkasaurus. Toothpick. --_

_* Toothpick? *_

_\-- Yer skinny. --_

_* I’m skinny NOW. What about Janus? *_

_\-- He only had 2 faces --_

_* Yeah, I guess. And he was a god… *_

There’s a lag between messages and Spencer can’t help but wonder what Aaron is thinking as he reads them. Does he really understand that Spencer will always be slipping from one mask to the next? Like Aaron’s killer, he doesn’t have a choice – it’s part of who he is. But unlike Aaron’s killer, it is his body that will be unknowable, while his personality remains constant. And somehow, that’s just as impossible to grasp as an ordinary, family man suddenly becoming a raging murderer. Aaron understands how the man he’s hunting fits into a classification box, but he doesn’t understand the ‘why’ on an empathetic level. In the end, Spencer thinks it’ll be the same problem with him.

His phone beeps again.

_\-- Spence, I meant what I said before. About you being magic. I don’t believe that’s tied to your face. --_

_* I just want to be someone you’ll want *_

Christ, how pathetic is that? It’s the same damn thing he’s been wishing for since the day his Dad walked out on him.

_\-- You already are --_

_* And after I change? *_

There’s another pause in messages as Spencer’s hand shakes around his phone in the dark.

_\-- It’s like me and my files. There’s who we are and who we seem to be. I’m really into the guy who talks too fast, draws weirdly, thinks too much, and is fascinated by everything. --_

Spencer puts down the phone on the mattress next to him and just stares at the last message, feeling hot and anxious and elated all in a noxious whirl.

“Jesus, Aaron…” he chokes softly and wonders if he’s already too far gone to keep denying how much this means to him. But can Aaron actually deliver on that fragile promise?

He continues staring at the phone as the minutes pass by and it beeps quietly into the mattress over and over. When he picks it up and checks the screen, it’s just his name repeated with an escalation of question marks.

_* I’m here. *_

_\-- I freaked you out, didn’t I? I shouldn’t have said it… --_

_* Only if you didn’t mean it. *_

_\-- I meant it --_

_* Then we’re fine. *_

He’s not sure they are. Not really.

_\-- You’re not the only one freaking out, you know. I cycle through periods of thinking we can have this followed by downswings of inevitable reality… --_

Really? He does? Maybe that’s the proof he’s been waiting to see; the evidence that this is just as impossible as Spencer thinks it is.

_* We can’t do this now, Aaron *_

_\-- I could call you… --_

_* You are WORKING. This is distracting you. *_

_\-- You’ll distract me whether we talk or not --_

_* Please Aaron – I need you to be who you are. You CANNOT allow this to upend your life. *_

“Not for me,” he whispers. “Not for something that’s impossible.”

_\-- What if I want it to upend my life? What if I’m tired of the way I’ve lived for the past 30 yrs? --_

_* Radical, sudden change never lasts. I don’t want to be an abnormal blip in the continuum of your life. I don’t want to be Dan. *_

He feels sick. He knows what he said looks like a rejection, and though his guts are screaming for him to FIX IT, there’s a stronger part that just numbly waits to land back on planet Earth and into the solitary life he knows the rules to. After all, Dan didn’t last – why should he? Maybe Aaron just needs him now for some reason…

_\-- You think you’re someone I’m clinging to in a moment of weakness? --_

_* It’s not weakness! *_

_* That’s part of the problem I guess *_

_\-- Problem? --_

_* Everything I like about you is something you think is ugly & frail. It’s a bigger problem than my shifting face. *_

And now he’s being a coward because he’s making this about Aaron and not his own inadequacies. He can never be the beautiful mind in the beautiful body that Aaron wants. 

_\-- Like it’s not the EXACT SAME PROBLEM --_

_* Pardon? *_

_\-- Your appearance changes and you hide behind it. You become other people – become who they’d want – because you don’t think anything of yourself. I like who you are, Spence. --_

He feels attacked. It’s instinctual, irrational, and he pushes back, pushes away impulsively. Because Aaron only wants him **in this face.**

_* But only as I am now. Not as a 7yo girl or a balding fat dude or a dried up old crone. You certainly wouldn’t fuck any of those, would you? *_

There’s a long, painful silence after that text, and he wonders if Aaron is starting to hate him five hundred miles away.

_\-- Quit being simplistic and vulgar --_

_* I want to be wanted the way you kissed me in my kitchen. I want you to DEMAND me because anything else is unthinkable. I want the need to be so fucking basic that any animal would understand the intent. *_

_\-- There’s more to relationships than sex, Spencer. --_

_* No there isn’t. Not for me. *_

He drops the phone on to the mattress in shock, his hands shaking from the surge of anger and denial racing through him. He only knows how to push away. He doesn’t really understand it. He _wants_ Aaron but he can’t weather trying and failing, and then living without everything that was promised. Sex is simple. This is too difficult, too full of variables that will consternate. Aaron doesn’t really see Spencer. He claims to like who he is, but Spencer’s never been noticed for _who he is._ It’s too late to change any of that. Aaron is just hot for this skinny, hipster body and some sexual midlife crisis. That’s it. It’s always like that with everyone: sex and attraction drives everything. God knows he’s used that to his advantage enough to know it’s true. Simple and basic enough that any animal would get it.

The phone beeps accusingly.

_\-- Why are you doing this?!? --_

_* Just telling you how life is with me. Like you did earlier. *_

_\-- Bullshit. What spooked you? --_

_* Nothing. I just want to get laid and have someone to talk to. You’ll only want the latter with me after tonight, and that’s not good enough. *_

He expects another angry message but the phone starts ringing instead. His finger hovers over the screen for an instant, trembling, before he declines the call. But the phone immediately rings again.

“Leave me alone,” he mumbles wetly and powers off the device in mid-ring. Then he’s back to staring at the ceiling again as his breathing stutters and his vision gets blurry and then clear, blurry and clear… “Juvenile whore… nothing but a reflection. Nothing…”

He falls asleep dreading the morning, looking out of a new, suddenly-friendless face.

 

\---- 

 

He’s staring at his reflection in the mirror as his mind goes blank on him for a full sixty seconds. Nothing but sensory input: the coolness of the tiles under his palms, the almost imperceptible bloop of the faucet when it drips, the hard edge of the counter corner where it digs into him as he sags against it. He’s waiting for his brain to argue with what his eyes are telling him, but there’s nothing but silence for so long it feels like his insides are bellowing it. He raises a finger and traces the outline of his reflection in the mirror. He feels nothing. Nothing. 

He needs to _do_ something. He needs to drag himself beyond this moment or be crushed by it.

Turning away, he stumbles back into the bedroom. Walking blindly until he hits the edge of the bed and collapses onto it, his body reaches out while his mind refuses him access. He finds the phone in his hand, message sent, before he’s even aware that anything’s happened.

_* I didn’t change. *_

It isn’t even a minute before the screen lights up with the incoming call. It’s not six a.m. yet.

“Hey,” he whispers weakly, feeling every syllable of the words he typed only seven hours earlier.

 _“Are you okay?”_ Aaron’s voice rumbles quietly and tightly, like they’re trying to figure out how to dismantle a bomb together. And fuck him if that sound doesn’t go straight to Spencer’s confused morning-dick. Spencer groans softly and rolls onto his side, ignoring all of his stupid instincts.

“I’m fine.” Lie. “It’s a state of non-action. Nothing has changed, so neither have I.” Another lie. Aaron sighs loudly over the phone but doesn’t say anything. Spencer closes his eyes and cringes. “I’m sorry I bothered you.”

 _“Why?”_ It’s a word with a lot of frustration attached to it.

“Because it’s really early,” he says lamely.

_“As if I slept at all after that exchange last night.”_

Spencer curls his face into the tossed sheets and fervently wishes to disappear.

 _“Spence…”_ Aaron’s voice sounds rung out, almost raspy with an urgency he’s trying to keep under control. _“Please talk to me. Tell me what’s going on. What was that last night?”_

Spencer groans into the sheets and he hears Aaron call out “What?” over the phone. He takes a deep breath, and rolls back.

“I’m scared,” he whispers, clutching the phone until a knuckle pops. “I’m scared of changing, and I’m scared of _why_ I’m scared of that. I’m scared of this… whatever between us being some sort of phase that you’ll move on from. I’m scared of being too much myself because then I’ll lose a friend, if I haven’t lost you already. I’m scared of how I feel, and then how I deal with those feelings because I don’t know how to relate to anyone in a mature way and it leads me to do stupid stuff like what I did last night, and all I could think to do was leave before you decided to, just like I always have-”

He gasps, only then realizing that he’s said that in a single breath.

_“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Spencer… hold on a minute…”_

“Sorry. I’m spinning… I’m spinning… This isn’t right. It’s not supposed to be like this…”

 _“And you know that how, Spencer? How many relationships have you had like this one?”_ Aaron is sounding quiet and reasonable, which is completely unfair. Surely he’s just as screwed up here… _“Listen, let’s start with the facts. You didn’t change.”_

“I don’t know what that means,” he rasps.

_“And you don’t know what that means. And we both want more than what we have. And we both have issues about getting that based on our individual neuroses. Can we agree on the facts?”_

“Yes, we can,” Spencer meeps. Aaron sighs.

_“This is partially my fault. I got irrationally anxious about leaving to take this case, and maybe it wound you up as well. I apologize.”_

“Aaron…”

 _“Listen, just…”_ Aaron’s voice cuts out on him and there’s a beat of silence. When he speaks again, he’s miraculously stronger. It forces Spencer to pay attention. _“Don’t make decisions about this without me. Please. I know that we’re… like two bags of broken glass and the sheer number of pieces to fit together boggles the mind but… don’t jump to conclusions about that.”_

Spencer lies there, shaking, grasping the phone and Aaron’s long-distance hope for dear life while ignoring his inconvenient, raging hard-on. Everything about him is gloriously and irrevocably fucked.

_“Agree to this, Spencer. Say the words.”_

“O-okay. I agree.”

 _“Good. Thank you… just, thank you.”_ There’s another long sigh over the phone.

“You’re tired,” Spencer murmurs, feeling guilty.

_“I am. It’s a difficult case so far and… and I wish I was back there with you.”_

Spencer’s dick pings hard and he shoves a hand over the tent in his pajamas angrily at his conflicting responses.

“Please, Aaron. I meant what I said about distracting you. That could be dangerous and I’d rather not hear from you than put you in danger. Do you understand?”

 _“I do,”_ Aaron rumbles darkly. _“But I’m going to keep calling you, so you’d better deal with it. I’ll handle my own distraction.”_

And suddenly Spencer’s brain helpfully imagines Aaron laying in a darkened hotel room palming himself quietly with gritted teeth while talking to Spencer. He shudders loudly and clamps his eyes shut, hand pushing down on his own cock hard enough to cause pain. Not now, not now. This is so wrong…

_“You okay?”_

“Y-yes… umm, yes. I think… I think I need coffee is all. I should… go and do that.”

It’s the least convincing he’s been in recent memory and he thinks there’s no way Aaron will buy it and then the following happens.

 _“I will call you later,”_ he murmurs slowly, his voice getting closer and a fraction deeper. But perhaps it isn’t intentional.

“O-okay…”

_“You will take the call. Say ‘yes’, Spence.”_

His body throbs, his breathing halts and restarts awkwardly. His cock is an angry, heavy heat against him. This sort of thing has never done anything for him before…

“Yes,” he breathes and there’s no disguising that it sounds a bit wanton.

 _“That makes me happy, Spencer,”_ he rumbles, and it sounds like he’s closer to the phone. _“You have no idea.”_

“I-I’m sure I don’t…”

 _“But you’re imagining how happy I am. Aren’t you?”_ He says it with just the barest lilt of suggestion. All Spencer can do is choke. _“That’s good enough. Until I can show you myself.”_

Oh, Christ…

 _“It’s still early,”_ he continues, and Spencer is imagining the slight curl to his mouth when he smiles. _“You have time to take care of that.”_

And Spencer’s wide awake, eyes open and riveted to the pillow in front of him, his body a confusing mess of icy chill at being called out and incendiary demands as all of his intellect races to his dick.

“Wh-what?”

 _“Have a good morning, Spencer.”_ Aaron chuckles and then regains control again. _“Then go make some coffee. Talk later.”_

The line goes dead as Spencer tries to catch up. He’s tight and confused all over. Then he’s frustrated, and tosses his phone into the sheets as he slides a hand down under the waistband of his pants.

“Thinks he’s so smart…” he gusts through gritted teeth as his fingers work him with speed and efficiency. He’s bucking and slick in no time, calling out Aaron’s name as he makes a mess of his pjs. He hopes that somewhere in Knoxville Aaron is stumbling to the shower, red-faced and as sticky as he is. If not, then Spencer is offended.

“Better have come like a teenager too…” he grumbles as he turns on the water in the bathroom. 

When he’s clean and dressed, he goes to make coffee. Exactly as he was instructed.

\---- 

The case lingers on. Spencer hears the escalating frustration in Aaron’s voice when he calls from hotel rooms and police precincts and loud, cacophonous places that must be public, like restaurants or schools or offices somewhere. He’s always quiet and close when he calls no matter the backdrop, and Spencer wonders what his teammates think when they see him doing it. Is he curled and secretive? Do they assume he’s calling his son instead? The calls are so regular that you could almost set a clock by them. Spencer doesn’t know what _that_ suggests about his importance, or if this is just a part of that possessive expectation he noted earlier. But he can’t deny that he’s come to look forward to the twice-daily calls, even if there’s no semantic value to what they say to each other.

Spencer sleeps through two more changes that never happen. _Those calls_ always matter. He’s now worn ‘Aaron’s face’ for almost two weeks.

“Aaron, it has to mean something…” he breathes shakily, though he’s slowly coming to accept this form of ‘stability’.

 _“Hmmmm…”_ he murmurs in the tone that’s led to phone sex more often than not. But Spencer refuses to let his thoughts stray this time. _“Perhaps you’ve decided who you’re going to be.”_

“It… that’s not how identity works,” he grumbles. “This isn’t even my face.”

_“I disagree. This is EXACTLY how identity works. Part of it is beyond our control of course, but a lot of it is reflective of our environment and how we choose to interact with it.”_

Aaron pauses for a long moment, as he is prone to doing. Spencer has discovered that Aaron thinks intensely about almost everything.

_“Do you not like this face?”_

It’s a loaded question, but entirely relevant.

“I do like it,” he sighs. “And in no small part because _you_ like it so much. But I’ll admit that it’s handsome and advantageous in all sorts of ways. And… there’s a small part of me that feels, I dunno… at home in it? It is also awkward and strange, and both of those attributes are very much ‘me’…”

There’s silence over the phone, and Spencer gets that.

“And now I’ve bought it a ton of clothes…” he tries for levity. It works: Aaron chuckles.

_“Oh yeah? Like what?”_

“Mostly mismatched skinny suits and some disturbing sweater vests. I _really_ like this body in sweater vests…”

Aaron is laughing now, low, full, and inevitable like logs rolling down a hillside. _“You are ludicrous, you know that? I love that about you…”_

The word just hangs there between them as Aaron’s laughter dies in a sudden choking sound a moment after he says it. Spencer’s pulse does this skip-hop-crash thing that’s painful, and he has to be still for a minute until it normalizes and he can think again. Aaron doesn’t say anything, and Spencer decides to walk them right past the moment because neither of them is in a place to deal with it.

“This case is going on forever,” he says quietly. “Is it always like this?”

Aaron clears his throat carefully. _“Each case is different but, no, we usually don’t spend this much time onsite for one case.”_ He sighs. _“But we have to catch this guy. We have to. He won’t stop unless we do. He has no control left whatsoever, Spence.”_

“But surely –if he lacks control – his own decompensation will trip him up. Won’t it?”

 _“I wish we’d found you before the NSA did,”_ he murmurs warmly, and it makes Spencer tingle oddly all over. _“Yes, it will. But the problem with that plan is timing, and collateral damage.”_

“Oh.” Of course. Then he considers what Aaron’s not saying. “Are you getting pressure from your superiors?”

Aaron sighs. _“There’s always pressure. That’s part of leading a team. But it’s not the only pressure that matters.”_

Spencer nods against the phone. Aaron has high expectations for himself. That’s one thing his files nailed to a tee. Aaron doesn’t discuss it any further, but Spencer believes the mere fact he brought it up at all is important somehow. Spencer has no idea if anything he says in these moments helps, but it feels like behavior that’s coming to define who they are to each other.

“Be careful,” he murmurs before they end the call, and for the first time he’s really worried about that. Because even if they can’t make this work, Spencer needs Aaron to continue existing in the world.

\---- 

It’s fifteen days into the case when Aaron misses his first phone call. The calls come when he gets up in the morning, and at night when he’s done for the day. He called at six a.m. like clockwork and then… nothing. Spencer stays up in case it’s been an extra-long day, but by one a.m. he’s agitated.

_* Everything okay? *_

He falls asleep with his phone in his hand. When he jerks awake with the thin light of dawn coloring his windows, his message is still unanswered. He gets up, dresses, makes coffee he doesn’t drink as he stares out his kitchen window instead and watches his neighborhood slowly come to life.

Aaron misses the morning call too. Spencer doesn’t know what to do.

_* Aaron, are you okay? *_

The minutes blink by on his phone screen. Five minutes, ten, then thirty, forty-five, an hour, three hours, seven…

He can’t sit still, he can’t focus, he can’t think. 

No one knows him, or who he is in Aaron’s life. If something happened, how would he ever find out? Maybe he could hack the BAU server again. Garcia would know what’s going on – Aaron says she knows everything about them. A wave of lightheadedness hits and he stumbles into his couch. He realizes that he’s not breathing unless he reminds himself to do it.

 _He needs to keep existing_ , he tells himself. Then he appeals to something greater than him which he may or may not believe in. _I’ll give up on this if that’s what’s required – I’ll leave him be, but you HAVE to let him exist… That’s the deal I’m making._

He grabs his phone one last time.

_* Aaron, I need to hear from you a.s.a.p. *_

It’s ten minutes later and he’s in his office halfway to dismantling the new protections Garcia has erected around the BAU hub when his phone rings. It’s Aaron. He breathes out and feels as if he’ll slide from his chair with the lack of structure his body suddenly has.

“What the hell, Aaron-” he gasps.

There’s a beat. _“Who is this?”_ It’s a woman. His muscles lock up on him again, painfully.

“Who is THIS?” he demands back through a dry mouth.

_“SSA Emily Prentiss of the FBI. Who are you?”_

Spencer ignores the question. “Where is Aaron? Why do you have his phone?”

_“It’s Federal property. Identify yourself.”_

Spencer huffs, nearly choking on it, and tells himself to calm the hell down. He needs answers. “I’m Dr. Spencer Reid.”

 _“Are you a medical doctor?”_ Emily Prentiss hesitates.

“No.”

_“Then I’m sorry, Doctor, I can’t tell you anything.”_

What?!?

Spencer forces himself to analyze Ms. Prentiss from her language. He closes his eyes, pictures the words in his mind, sees the color of her unconscious intentions, and then hastily forms a mask that might work on her.

“I’m an agent with the NSA, SSA Prentiss, with security clearance priority one or better in almost every protocol. Whatever has happened, you can read me in on it. My discretion is assured and I have no agenda other than Aaron’s status. He is a close friend so I’d appreciate the professional courtesy.”

There’s a full minute of nothing. Spencer focuses on the background noise because wherever Prentiss is, it’s not quiet. There are multiple voices, distant, tinny announcements, and sudden explosions of excitement that draw near and then away in a Doppler Effect that frightens him. It sounds like a hospital.

Ms. Prentiss sighs and when she speaks again, her voice has lost it’s clipped, sharp edge. _“I’m very sorry, Dr. Reid, but I really can’t discuss it. It’s a personal matter – I hope you understand. I will tell Hotch you called and encourage him to contact you as soon as possible.”_

“Is he okay?” he interrupts. “Can you at least tell me that much?”

There’s another pause, and then, _“Yes, he is. Don’t worry about that,”_ she says gently. _“I’ll get him to call you. Keep your phone on.”_

Then she hangs up without another word. Spencer is just numb. He stares at his phone, then looks around like the answers will be written on his office walls, and then back to his phone again. He decides to review what he knows.

Aaron missed two calls. Another agent has his phone. He may or may not be in a hospital, though his colleague claims he is okay. The matter is ‘personal’ and he couldn’t discover any details by pulling rank on SSA Prentiss. Aaron is capable of making contact, but hasn’t.

The math doesn’t add up favorably.

Perhaps something happened on the case. Perhaps he’s in trouble or hurt, despite what Prentiss says. Perhaps there are secrets in his personal life that Spencer has failed to uncover. Another lover? Some other unsavory complication? Or even worse, perhaps something happened to his son.

Or, maybe he finally came to his senses about this thing with Spencer and he doesn’t know how to call it off.

The fucking math guts him.

Spencer sits in his office chair until his butt goes numb. Aaron doesn’t call. He stares at his screens until his eyes hurt, and then he burrows past Garcia’s protections and leaves his hacker signature and a note on half a dozen improvements she could make to lock down her server so that it’s nearly seamless. Then he shuts down and shuffles back to his living room. It’s dark again and he has no sensation of time passing. He slumps into the sofa and watches the random headlights of people turning down his cul-du-sac. He doesn’t know how long he sits there when his phone beeps softly. It’s not who he expects.

_~ I don’t like you ~_

_* Okay???? *_

_~ It’s Penelope Garcia of the BAU ~_

_* oh. *_

_* Honestly, I didn’t mean any offense. Your skills are mighty. It’s just testing security is what I do *_

_~ I know. I looked you up. ~_

_* Of course *_

_~ & your suggestions weren’t awful ~_

_* Ummm… thx? *_

_~ & Emily says you sound kind ~_

_* I beg your pardon? *_

_~ Hotch needs a little kindness in his life. He’s been fighting on his own for too long. Everyone agrees on that. ~_

_* Everyone? *_

_~ The team. My babies. He’s the one baby I can’t get straightened out, so I’m hoping you can. ~_

_* This conversation is making me uncomfortable. Aaron’s co-workers are discussing this? *_

_~ Not even slightly. Your call to Em tonight sorta blew her hair back a little. No one was expecting… well, YOU… ~_

_~ Not that I’m judging. The heart wants what the heart wants… It’s frustrating that I can’t find a current photo of you online tho. How did you DO that?? ~_

_* Ummm *_

_~ But if you hurt him, I’ll burn your life down. Fair warning. ~_

_* This is… I’m not… *_

_~ It’s fine, NSA, yer secret’s safe & Em will take it to her grave, trust me. I just wanted to let you know I KNOW, and that you ain’t the only one who can be sneaky & helpful & weird all at the same time. So, a little checky mark next to that on today’s to-do list… ~_

_* I need a drink *_

_~ EXCELLENT SUGGESTION. Okay, maybe I’m starting to warm to you, NSA… ~_

_~ Anyway, when you see Hotch, be patient, but also don’t take any of his shit. That’s my advice. I’ll be waiting to see how you handle this. Just remember I have plastic bags & a shovel in the trunk of my car at all times. Toodles! ~_

“What?” Spencer stares at his screen in muted horror. “Who the hell does he work with?!?”

Then a minute later, his phone beeps again.

_\-- Just landed. May I come over? --_

_* Where have you been?! Are you okay? What the FUCK is going on with you and your damned team?! *_

_\-- I know you spoke to Prentiss… --_

_* And Garcia *_

_\-- oh. --_

_* OH??????? *_

_\-- Please, let me explain this in person --_

_* Can I stop you? *_

_\-- No. --_

_* Fine. But if you’re just coming here to end things, I’m fine with a text message instead. Too much drama today already. *_

_\-- What? No. --_

_\-- Spencer, NO. Don’t jump to conclusions – you promised. --_

Spencer tosses his phone down and ignores the next two message beeps. He’s already exhausted by this and has no idea what’s barreling towards him now. He’s pretty sure that other people find this much easier than he does. Why does everything he tries end up being so complicated? Will he always be like this? Always outside, pressed up against the glass of other people’s lives, aching and wanting in? 

Lights strafe across his living room windows and each time, his guts tighten. But by the time Aaron arrives, the anxiety has melted into detachment, his body unable to sustain the thrum at such a constant high level. Aaron is wan, with dark circles under worried eyes. He stands in the doorway for a minute, not stepping through, just staring at Spencer as if he’s been paralyzed.

“What?” Spencer huffs, frustrated by the continuing silence and embarrassed by the stare.

“It’s…” Aaron croaks and then tries again. “It’s been two weeks…” He shakes his head. “Every time I see you I feel like I’ve won something.”

He shrugs and steps through, leaving Spencer blinking and holding the door. He doesn’t want to think that Aaron thought about this opening salvo in advance, and how effective it might be in disarming him.

He shuts the door harder than he should, seeing Aaron twitch slightly on the periphery, and then stalks past him to the living room. He hears Aaron follow, and then points at the sofa as he takes his seat. Aaron slides down, much like the night he showed up to ask about Spencer’s change.

“Talk,” Spencer growls quietly.

“Yes,” Aaron nods and seems to sag into the cushions with it. “Yesterday afternoon, we got a break in the case: positive i.d. of our suspect in the area, and when we arrived at the tip location, he was still there.”

Aaron gestures with his left hand but it shakes and he twitches it down to land across his thigh instead.

“He was in a public place and we had no idea of his intention or weapons status, so we sat on him, moving as he moved, strategizing on the fly.”

“Sounds stressful. And boring.”

“It was. And it took hours. He kept moving from one crowded location to another. It became obvious that he was displaying himself, wanting us to appear so he could enact his final showdown.”

“Oh,” Spencer breathes. “What do you do in a situation like that?”

“There’s no set directive, really. It’s a SSAC judgement call,” Aaron sighs. He looks like a ghost sitting on Spencer’s sofa, washed out and pale, missing a tie again like he’s missing an anchor. The overall effect is quietly terrifying. “I decided we had to engage.”

“Oh,” is all Spencer feels qualified to say.

“He was in a café, not unlike the one where we met, and it was busy but less so than his other set-ups. It was the best of a bunch of bad selections.” Aaron shrugs and then freezes for an instant as his expression becomes a bland mask. Then he leans back into the cushions with a grunt and continues. “So, we set up our perimeter, cleared as much collateral from the area as possible, and I walked in.”

“ _You?_ ” Spencer sits up straight. “You walked in?”

“Someone had to, Spence. I have the most experience with negotiation, and had command authority. It was my responsibility, and the obvious choice.” He looks at Spencer tiredly, waiting for a fight. Spencer’s not sure he wants one, but Aaron is definitely expecting it. Electing to confound instead, Spencer swallows back his fear and just nods for Aaron to continue. And it works; Aaron’s gaze takes an obvious stutter step before he speaks.

“He knew who I was as soon as I walked in…”

“It’s the suits, you know,” Spencer blurts without thinking, and Aaron smiles for a moment.

“He had everything he wanted then: hostages, fortification, and someone to talk to.”

“Aaron, I don’t like where this is going. Can we skip to the end?” Spencer’s leg begins to bounce uncontrollably. 

“We talked for hours,” Aaron nods. “I got him to release everyone but me and a girl he was using as a shield against our snipers…”

“Jesus, Aaron…”

Aaron waves his hand, the right one this time. “He died. One of our sharpshooters got him. The girl is fine. Case closed.”

That’s it? Spencer blinks. Then why the cloak and dagger with Agent Prentiss? Why the radio silence for nearly twenty hours? He went through all of this for nothing?

“Why couldn’t you call and tell me that?”

Aaron looks even more tired suddenly. “There were… complications. I’ve been removed from duty pending an internal hearing.” Spencer must look shocked because Aaron leans forward and waves it off. “It’s nothing I haven’t been through before. I will prevail. It’s pretty standard in a very public, possibly-messy scenario like this. Your judgement gets called onto the carpet, so to speak.”

He leans back and there’s a definite wince this time. 

“There were a lot of bureaucratic levels I had to answer to in a short period of time. The Bureau had to rev up its PR machine for the media – I wasn’t allowed to speak to anyone. That’s why Prentiss had my phone.”

Spencer watches him for a moment. “You’re not telling me everything.”

“Well, for obvious reasons I can’t.”

“No, that’s not it. There’s something you _could_ say but won’t.”

Aaron sighs loudly, rolling his eyes shut and looking like he’ll collapse into the couch. “I’m fine, Spencer. And my job will be fine too. Eventually.”

He opens his eyes and gives Spencer an expression of such remorse that it shocks him a little. “I’m sorry I couldn’t reach out. I’m sorry for the fear. It’s not what I wanted. My life is littered with shitty moments like this. It’s why Haley came to hate me…”

He gestures angrily and then gasps, freezing in place. Spencer leans up on his knees and reaches out with a hand on Aaron’s shoulder. Aaron grunts and twitches, which produces another gasp as Spencer backs off like he’s been electrocuted.

“What the-” Spencer reaches for Aaron’s suit jacket and quickly slips his hand under it.

“Don’t!” Aaron barks, and Spencer twitches as if he’s been hit. Then he glares and flicks his hand back under the jacket and pulls it away before Aaron can stop him. There’s a petal of blood blooming through his dress shirt on his left shoulder.

“What… you’re bleeding…”

“Leave it alone. It’s fine.” He’s never heard Aaron like this before. He’s brutal and angry, wanting to lash out hard enough to scare Spencer off. It’s abrupt and has an expectation of compliance, like he’s talking to a subordinate. Spencer realizes that Aaron is _scared._

He slips his other hand under the suit jacket and shoves it over Aaron’s shoulders unceremoniously. Then his fingers move to Aaron’s shirt and start on the buttons.

“I said, leave it, Spencer,” Aaron barks again. When Spencer looks up, Aaron’s expression is full-blown contempt. But Spencer’s having none of it.

“Take these off. We have to see to the wound.”

Spencer’s not demanding an explanation, or seeking an apology. He’s not even really hoping for civility. Aaron is afraid and fear makes you aim for the tenderest parts, to inflict the most pain the fastest so you can get away cleanly. Spencer knows a crash is coming.

“Leave it!” Aaron grabs Spencer’s hands, twisting them until he yelps. Then Aaron lets go immediately, a look of horror spreading across him. “Sorry… I’m sorry… I-I…” He gulps and looks away. “oh fuck…”

Spencer slips back, out of Aaron’s way, and watches him implode. His hands ache a little, but it’s nothing really. It was more shocking than anything. Spencer knows that abuse is Aaron’s worst fear, but he still doesn’t know why Aaron is so frightened. He waits as Aaron cowers, tries to become small and invisible while still being unable to escape. Spencer knows the impulse intimately. It’s a painful thing to watch and it stretches out uncomfortably between them. Then, just when he thinks he can’t stand another moment, Spencer tries again.

“Take off your shirt, Aaron. You’re still bleeding.”

Aaron looks up at him – ashamed, lost.

“Just do it,” he whispers. “You don’t want to keeping bleeding all over the place, do you?”

Aaron shakes his head in a stunned way.

“Good. I’ll go get the first aid kit. Be right back.”

Spencer flees for the shelter of his bathroom, collecting what he needs and then realizing he’s hyperventilating when he looks up and sees his blown-out, flushed expression in the mirror. He bends himself in half and tries to gain some control back.

“Christ, Aaron… _Christ!_ ”

He chokes everything down along with the air he needs and then heads back to the living room when his vision clears and his pulse stops roaring in his ears. Aaron is stripped to the waist and turned away from where Spencer can see him, his back slumped in defeat and a bloody, soaked bandage half in place. Spencer comes up behind him and gently lowers the first aid kit on the sofa beside Aaron so he’s not spooked any further. 

But that probably shouldn’t have been his priority.

Aaron’s back is littered with dozens of old, poorly-healed welts. Strips of his back are permanently indented, other sections raised in scar tissue. Spencer’s eyes are riveted to the diagram of pain as he holds his breath, trying not to react to it. He lays his hand along the bandage taped to the back of Aaron’s shoulder, and as he forces himself to concentrate on that, his eyes skim down and see newer scars crisscrossing Aaron’s bare stomach. They are terrible and look like they could have been fatal. Then he hears himself gasp and Aaron twitches at it, sighs, and settles again as if it’s all inevitable. Is this what he is afraid of?

Spencer numbly pulls the bandage away, even though his vision is getting blurry on him, and the moment descends with a mighty thud. The wound is a bullet hole just eight inches up from his heart.

“It’s a through-and-through. Nothing really,” Aaron says without feeling, staring forward. “I’ve had worse.”

Spencer squeezes his eyes shut and swallows down the fear. “Don’t you wear vests?” he murmurs as calmly as he can. Aaron shrugs and then regrets it with a grunt.

“The straps are just fabric. No protection. He got lucky. Or I did, since he’s dead and I’m not…”

Aaron’s voice is flat, no affect at all, as if he’s accepted that this type of violence is part of who he is. Looking at his scars, both new and old, it’s hard not to see how he’d come to that conclusion. Spencer forces himself to pull away the old bandage and begin cleaning, just to keep his hands busy. But all he can think is that Aaron’s life is a roadmap of violence, and he expects that to continue. Maybe he even believes it’s his due.

“The marks on your back…”

Aaron freezes under Spencer’s hands as he wipes away the blood and disinfects the angry pucker on both sides of Aaron’s shoulder.

“… are they… belt marks?”

Aaron doesn’t answer right away, and when he does it’s quieter, but with the same flatness of emotion. “Dad wasn’t always careful about the buckle.”

Spencer slams his eyes shut, wants to curl away and yell. There’s nothing he can do about this, and nothing he can do for a man who treats this sort of violence as normal. Somewhere along the way, Aaron lost his fear of it. He fears how others will react to it – yes – but he doesn’t expect it to change. And somehow, he also expects Spencer to live with that. The worry he experienced today wouldn’t be a one-off. And suddenly, everything Spencer’s done in order to survive his condition doesn’t seem like anything compared to Aaron convincing himself that unflinching risk is the only option he had open to him in his life.

Spencer’s gut drops and his breath comes in gasps that are hard to control as he packs the wound and tapes new gauze into place. Aaron turns a little under his hands.

“You okay?”

Spencer blinks too fast, feels himself frown as he smooths the medical tape so that it will lie flat. He senses Aaron’s eyes on him when he gently bends and brushes his lips against the ridge of Aaron’s shoulder. Then a tear slips loose and splashes onto the spot he’s just kissed goodbye.

“Spencer, what’s the matter?” Aaron whispers.

Spencer turns away, fiddles with packing up the extra gauze in the first aid kit. He clamps down on the sorrow of being unable to fix this.

“Spencer…” A hand clasps his wrist, then he hears a hiss and the hand is gone, quickly replaced by another. “Look at me.”

Spencer does and knows he’s not hiding anything in his expression. Aaron’s eyes get huge and his mouth drops open “What? Is it because I didn’t tell you I got shot? I didn’t want you to worry. It’s nothing. Really. Just a pain-”

“I _was_ worried,” he says back quietly. “For twenty hours. I was mindless, unfocused... I was bargaining _with God_ , Aaron, and that was before I knew you’d been shot. But you don’t see this the same way I do. To you, it’s the cost of doing your job. You’re not afraid of it – you’re only afraid of what others will think.”

Aaron just watches him, shocked and wordless under his exhaustion and worry.

“You’ve worked so hard to stop being that scared kid in a farmer’s field that you’ve lost a sense of your own mortality.” Spencer sucks in a huge breath. “I knew your job was dangerous – I did. But this? I don’t understand it, and I won’t accept it. I’m sorry.”

“Spencer,” Aaron’s grip on his wrist clamps down. “You’re blowing this out of propor-”

“No, I’m not, Aaron,” he interrupts. “You hid this because part of you knew I wouldn’t get it. You said Haley hated it, hated your job… I’m sure you’re quite practiced at deflecting worry.” He grabs Aaron’s hand back and holds it firmly. “I know your job’s important to you – part of your identity. I won’t do what Haley did and demand that you change that. But you also can’t change the part of me that’s horrified by this. That the gentle man I want so much is _this numb_ to the violence around him.”

“Spencer… Spencer…” Aaron sits up, winces, and arches back over the ridge of the sofa. “Come sit with me. You don’t understand-”

“What’s to understand?” Spencer whispers incredulously. “Do you think you can talk me into this?”

“No, I don’t, and that’s not what I want at all.” His voice is sharp, echoing a little in the quiet house, then he looks chastened and releases Spencer’s wrist. “Just… come sit with me. Please.”

He seems so pale, so brittle that Spencer’s almost afraid to say ‘no’. So he doesn’t. He rounds the sofa and sits on the coffee table facing Aaron with his newly-bandaged shoulder and his trepidation.

He breathes out and lets his wrists dangle from his knees. “Okay. Lay it on me.”

“I’m not laying anything on you,” Aaron huffs. “It was a mistake to try and hide the wound. And you’re right, I was operating on instincts I honed during my marriage. Haley and I fought bitterly over the job – it was just easier to manage her reactions to bad cases instead…”

“I am _not_ Haley.”

“I know that.”

“And that’s _not_ the point I was making.”

“What was the point then?”

Spencer glares at him because he knows Aaron isn’t this obtuse. Then he decides to be less than kind. He points at the vicious scars across his abdomen. “How did those happen?”

“I’d prefer not to talk about it.”

“NOT an option.”

Aaron huffs as his eyebrows lower. “A suspect we were hunting took an interest in me. He staked out my place, waited until I was alone and no one expected to hear from me, and then he held me down and stabbed me.”

Spencer rears back, partially from the story and partially from the monotone Aaron uses to describe it.

“Satisfied?” Aaron asks blandly. Spencer feels himself crease into sharp edges of anger, but he’s not sure who he’s angry at.

“Can you hear yourself? Can you tell how horrible it is to hear you talk about these things like you’re ordering take-out?” Spencer leans forward, his voice shaking when he speaks again. “It disgusts me. That you have no fear for your life when I… when I… _need it_ so much…” He gulps and looks away. “I-I know you think you’ve overcome a weakness… but this mask you use to keep the world at bay, to seem ‘strong’… I don’t care about it.”

He looks back and finds Aaron gaping at him. 

“I was _scared_ today, Aaron. I’m not ashamed to admit it. Call it weakness if you want to, but I don’t want to get used to being stoic in the face of that sort of fear. That’s not bravery to me. That’s not being better than what your father thought you were. Telling you that _being scared_ is important, and that your existence _matters_ to me, and being prepared to walk away in order to prove it is the only brave thing I can muster here. But I’m just a coding geek. Never been a badass and never will be. Not like you…”

Aaron just swallows hard and goes completely still. Maybe this is the end. Maybe there’s no possible response to something like that…

“I’m alone, cursed, and have a bunch of unpleasant neuroses. I’m never gonna… _connect_ like this with someone again,” Spencer leans into the truth of that, even as it cuts him wide open. “But I’d walk away from the only person I care about in order to maintain the fragile fiction of you still existing in my mind, Aaron. I’d weather this all on my own again, rather than have you leave one day and never come back simply because you don’t value yourself enough to be scared.”

Then he stares because that’s all he has left. After a full minute of silence, Spencer huffs and braces his head in his hands, eyes pricking. If Aaron has nothing to say, he wishes he’d leave. He doesn’t want an audience for the breakdown inching up his chest.

Fingers circle his wrists as he holds his head, just brushing, unsure of where to land or how to hold.

“Don’t… don’t give up on me…”

When he glances through his hands, Aaron is a fractured portrait of fear. Spencer sits up, drops his hands, breaking their grip, and tries to make the pieces line up into something he understands.

“I’m scared often, much more than I’d ever admit,” Aaron whispers, voice cracking over the words. “I was scared today. I’m scared right now… I scare _easily_ \- always have. Dad hated that about me. He tried to beat it out of me, to toughen me up. But when that didn’t work… he educated me in terror. Told me if I was going to be scared, I ought to understand what that really meant.”

“Aaron…” Spencer mumbles wetly.

“He beat me and my brother for no reason, without warning… he did… worse things to Mom… as an object lesson for us…” Aaron chokes, and then Spencer reaches out and clasps him by the jaw pulling him in until their foreheads knock against each other. Aaron hisses but then leans into Spencer, closing his eyes and resting in the huddle they’ve made together. 

“He told me I was weak, he made me feel it. There was no escape, no way to satisfy him. After that day in the field with Dan, when I broke…” Aaron gulps. “…and the shelter Dan promised wasn’t there… I decided _not_ to feel. No matter how hard Dad beat me after that, I gave him nothing.”

Aaron’s eyes flick open and stare at Spencer.

“But I never really succeeded, Spence. Not really.”

His voice breaks and Spencer breathes roughly as Aaron blinks too much and struggles to calm himself.

“When Foyet gave me these,” Aaron’s fingers blindly glide across the lacing of scars on his stomach. “After I tried my best to fight back, when the pain paralyzed me and all I could do was… lie there and take it again and again like I had in the past…”

Spencer braces the other side of Aaron’s face and holds him securely, as if that will shield him from the memories.

“I begged someone to come save me. Begged for it.” It comes out as a sob, and Spencer doesn’t know what else to do but silence it with his lips. He kisses him once, twice, and then they pull apart, both with eyes closed leaning into each other for all they are worth. “But no one came. No one ever does…”

“Shhhhh, Aaron, okay… okay…”

“Is this what you wanted?” Aaron chokes. “To know every way I’m broken? Why, Spencer? Why would you want that?”

“This isn’t broken,” Spencer whispers urgently, shaking Aaron’s head to focus him. “It’s not weakness. Can’t you see that your… fear is your humanity? It’s what makes you _you_. It’s why you give a damn about an old high school buddy who tried to help you, or a weird guy you ran into in a coffee shop, or a girl you didn’t know in the arms of a psychopath.”

Spencer leans in and kisses him, pulling hard, making it count. He tries to push past the experienced FBI agent and dour lawyer to the scared, unsure kid far beyond him.

“Your fear has made you strong because you survived it. And your fear has made you feel for people. You can see them behind the masks they wear. It makes you look more closely, think more critically because you know how people hide things. And it makes you curious and accepting – it’s _empathy_ , Aaron, born out of experience, and its value doesn’t have a price.” Spencer pauses for a moment, gathers himself. “Everything you wrap up into that word – fear – is what makes me want you, Aaron. That bravery stuff is hollow – it does nothing for me.”

He leans hard against Aaron’s forehead and squeezes his eyes shut, cupping his face until his fingers ache. “I _need_ your weakness, Aaron,” he gasps. “It’s the only real thing I’ve wanted in eleven years…”

There’s a moment – just a brief breath of quiet between them. And then Aaron kisses him back with a moan, urgent and rough, his fingers twisting in the collar of Spencer’s shirt. 

“Don’t quit on this,” he rumbles when they slip apart.

“Don’t use your masks on me,” Spencer breathes back into his mouth, lips catching and slipping once more. “I want the man who grew from that kid in the field. I want him so much…”

“Christ, Spencer…” 

Aaron’s hands skim up into Spencer’s hair and pull him to his mouth again with a groan. He twitches as they move together awkwardly, but he won’t let Spencer go when he tries to pull back. He demands, just like Spencer asked when he was busy trying to push him away, but it feels instinctual, as if it comes from some part of him long ignored but never quite erased. Spencer heats everywhere they make contact. It hardly seems like this is still new to them, that a majority of who they are together has taken place in absence or over the phone. Spencer makes a soft, desperate sound, and Aaron tastes it, dipping and savoring it as he slows, works them until Spencer relents and he slips inside. Then they both make the same, soft noise.

“You _are_ magic, Spence…” Aaron mumbles when they slide apart, gasping and holding each other too tightly. “And you scare the hell out of me.”

Spencer blinks, trying to clear his head from the fog of their kiss, and gulps some air. “What do you mean? Why?”

“Because I’ve never wanted anyone like this, from out of the blue, and with so much risk involved.”

Spencer backs away a little, hands still cupping Aaron, waiting for more.

“You could physically change,” Aaron whispers, gaze round and worried, but fingers stroking in Spencer’s too-long hair. “You could freak out and put up your defenses. You want me to roll over and offer up my soft underbelly to you, and I want to – I’m ready to do it. But… you could hurt me more than Dad ever did, and you could do it by accident. Because I’ve fallen that fast and that hard.”

He swallows and pushes in until their noses brush together. “You can hurt me, Spence. You have that kind of power. Understand your value and… _take care._ ”

“A-Aaron…” Spencer doesn’t know what to say, but Aaron quietens him before it becomes a problem.

“It feels like I’ve waited a lifetime to find someone I didn’t have to guard against. Don’t give me a reason to doubt it’s you. I’ll still care about you if you change, I’ll still be your friend if we fail at this. I’m sticking with you, okay? Just… stick with me…”

Aaron sighs heavily and closes his eyes, drifting, as if he’ll fall asleep like that. And Spencer’s heart is hammering into his ribs like it wants to fracture them. He slides away from Aaron’s forehead and instead ducks down to hide his face in the crook of Aaron’s shoulder. Aaron makes a surprised groan, but Spencer wraps him up securely, arms crossed over his bare back as he pulls him close.

No one’s ever stuck with him. No one’s ever promised to stay. He always leaves before the sun rises.

Aaron’s arms slowly mirror Spencer’s. He sighs against him and they just hold on that way, with Spencer leaning awkwardly from his perch on the coffee table and Aaron trying to avoid using his shoulder.

“I’m sorry, again, for not calling you,” Aaron mumbles. Spencer shrugs, still too breathless to manage a coherent response. “Was Prentiss… polite when you spoke with her? She’s a little edgy and overprotective. I’m certain Garcia wasn’t polite…”

Spencer laughs wetly, burrowing his face deeper into Aaron’s neck and breathing him in. 

“Garcia basically threatened my life if I hurt you,” he chuckles.

“Really.”

Spencer nods into Aaron’s neck, tickling him and making him scrunch against it. Spencer stills him by flicking his tongue up the line of his neck, as Aaron’s grip across him gets tighter.

“She suggested a shallow grave was in my future if I compromised you in any way.” He breathes it into Aaron as he skims and ends up nipping the space under Aaron’s jaw. Aaron shivers quietly and doesn’t move. “I’m sure if she saw us like this, she’d break out the shovel in no time,” he whispers.

Aaron rumbles and trembles again. “Maybe not. Garcia has a profound romantic streak.”

“I’m glad you think I’m being romantic,” Spencer smiles, and then bites gently. Aaron’s left side sort of collapses for a moment before his shoulder makes him freeze in place again. “I have slightly darker intentions myself…”

“Ah,” Aaron rasps unsteadily, his hands now roaming over Spencer’s back, picking at the seams of his shirt. “The early morning calls weren’t enough, I see…”

“Oh god… did you know…” Spencer hesitates, feeling heat bloom on his face at Aaron’s neck.

“From the first call,” Aaron chuckles, and Spencer groans with embarrassment.

“Did you… too?”

“Of course,” he husks as he pulls back and looks Spencer in the eye. “Haven’t jacked off that much in twenty years. It was ridiculous.”

“Awkward,” Spencer coughs and tries to look away.

“Exciting,” Aaron corrects and then drags Spencer to his lips. “And now, just your voice on the phone can get me interested…”

Spencer makes a sort of embarrassing, helpless whimper at that and Aaron dips in to capture it with his mouth. Then they are bound up again, hands roaming, lips skimming between quick gasps to keep them going. Spencer allows himself to sink under it for a moment, to enjoy the basic need that he’s craved, but then his fingers trace over a particularly vicious welt on Aaron’s back and reality snatches him away from his fantasy.

He pulls back gently, feeling dangerously warm and liquid everywhere. Aaron tries to lean forward, to capture him again, but winces and stills as his shoulder stops him. Spencer reaches out and lightly lays a hand over the new bandage he’s fixed in place, mesmerized by what he knows exists underneath it. Aaron waits, breath rattling out of him too quickly.

“Say it,” he whispers. “Whatever it is, Spencer.”

Spencer looks up into Aaron’s tired eyes. He wants to bless them for still existing, for seeing him the way they do. He doesn’t want to do without them. “I can’t ask you to change.”

“No,” Aaron shakes his head. “That won’t work.”

“So… what do we do?”

Aaron sighs, and sinks back into the sofa with a grunt he doesn’t try to downplay. 

“This is my job, Spencer, and there’s a significant part of me that loves it. Not the fear and violence, mind you, but the helping people who need it. _Saving_ people from situations that otherwise might steal them away. I love that.”

Aaron nods and seems to get lost in memory for a while, eyes getting distant and unfocused. Then, without warning, his gaze snaps back to Spencer, as sharp and penetrating as that first day in the café when they were trying to figure each other out.

“But I also love the way I am with you – the person you bring out in me. Even if it scares me. I’ve never felt… comfortable being open with others, even Haley. I guess I felt I had to save her as well, only from the reality of my job and why I need it so much. I didn’t do such a good job at that…”

His fingers brush the scars on his stomach and Spencer wonders why.

“He killed her,” Aaron whispers, and Spencer’s eyes snap to his. “Foyet. After he tried to kill me, he went after her and Jack. We were divorced by then, and she was protected, but it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t save her.”

Spencer’s gut bottoms out and he feels his mouth drop open. “Aaron… I… I don’t know…”

“It’s okay. There are no words for it,” Aaron waves him off. “My job – the thing I love – killed her. Sometimes… sometimes I wonder, if I had been open with her about my job, my fear, about Dad… would it still have ended that way? Maybe if I’d let her in, maybe if I’d spent less time trying to shield her from me, been more forthright… if she knew the risks…”

Aaron’s voice stutters out into a choke and he swallows hard but doesn’t go on. Spencer just sits, frozen on the edge of the coffee table, trying to dig past Aaron’s words to find out what he’s struggling to express. Then Aaron’s eyes flick back to his and he stares for an uncomfortable length of time, not hiding the years of wreckage he’s kept to himself. And that makes Spencer’s breath catch in his throat.

“I can talk to you the way I never could with her,” he whispers. “About the job… about everything. It’s not even all that hard – it just sort of… _happens_ with you. I don’t want to lose that.”

Spencer’s stomach flips dangerously. “I know,” he breathes.

“I want to keep doing the work that I love, Spencer.”

“I won’t stop you. I told you that.”

“But I want you as well. I want both.” The statement lands hard between them in the silence of the house. Aaron continues staring with his mercilessly open gaze, his scars and exhaustion a terrible counterpoint to the plea he’s making. But he’s put his cards on the table and doesn’t have any other moves left. Spencer’s heart aches deep in his chest for what that really means.

Spencer’s eyes slip shut and when he sighs, his whole body feels as if it’s slowly deflating on him.

“I’ll tell you everything,” Aaron breathes unsteadily. “I’ll be completely open about it all. That’s where it’s all gone wrong before… I won’t pretend to be someone else in order to protect you from what I go through.”

It’s a raw offer, urgent and risky and terrible. It’s everything Aaron has spent his adult life trying not to be. And none of that is lost on Spencer. He can’t open his eyes though, he can’t leap the way his heart demands he should. He’s trembling because the risk with Aaron is real in a way he didn’t understand until this evening. The couch creaks and he feels a hand land lightly along his shoulder.

Spencer sucks in a hitched breath that makes his trembling worse. “You don’t know how much I need this…” he wheezes. _You don’t know what I’d lose if you suddenly weren’t there…_

Then arms are around him again, and he’s nuzzled against Aaron’s neck, and there’s a grunt of pain as well as a soft hush of reassurance. Aaron holds him like it’s going to be his new state of being, and Spencer just gives into it.

“I won’t let you down,” Aaron breathes across his neck.

“You can’t make that promise.”

“I just did, and I’ll keep it. Watch me.” Aaron has high expectations of himself. He is a man of ambition. Now it appears that Spencer is one of his ambitions.

The night-quiet of the house surrounds them and there’s nothing to distract Spencer from the wall of feeling he crashes headlong into without warning. They’ve transitioned from wary friends with a secret, to guys in denial about what they feel, to an open, serious situation with frightening speed. Spencer now finds himself curled around a man he _expects_ things from, with complicated issues that he’s committed to reassessing. There’s nothing casual or flirty about this anymore, and the risks are huge. He doesn’t know where they go from here. He doesn’t know how to have a relationship like this. He doesn’t know how to be with a man.

He starts shaking and he can’t stop.

“Hey, Spence… what is it? Hey…” Aaron rumbles against his cheek, his hands smoothing over Spencer’s back in warm circles.

Spencer’s go-to for closeness is sex, but sex is always temporary for him. A way to forestall the isolation that might drive him mad. He’s never stuck around for the consequences. He wants Aaron as much as he’s wanted anyone, but he’s under no illusions that sex between them would be very different than anything he’s had before. He doesn’t have the words for what he wants, and doesn’t know if it’s even okay to ask for it now. But he reaches out anyway, still shaking as his breathing stutters and his fingers lightly brush the scars across Aaron’s abdomen. Aaron stiffens at the touch but doesn’t tell him to stop. His fingers follow the raised scar tissue like lines across a map, barely making contact. He’s mesmerized by their unevenness and their strange architecture. He divorces the violence from them in his mind in favor of pure exploration. His breath is still hiccupping into Aaron’s neck as he watches what his fingers are doing. But it takes a moment for him to realize that Aaron’s breathing is shallow and strained as well. He pulls his fingers back immediately.

“ ‘M sorry…” he mumbles, but Aaron’s hand catches his and presses it back against the worst of his scars. “Do… do they hurt?”

“No,” Aaron whispers. “I just… never expected anyone would want to touch them.”

“I should’ve asked if it was okay.”

“It’s okay.” Aaron’s mouth moves to Spencer’s ear and barely makes a sound when he speaks. “I want you to touch me everywhere.”

Spencer chokes, pulse booming so hard in his throat that he can’t breathe for a moment. Then he presses his face into the crook of Aaron’s neck to hide away from all the questions he doesn’t have answers to. And he’s flooded with want; a kind that tells you NOW because feelings are fleeting and moments never last. His body is sure, just like with every woman whose names he can’t quite recall who he’s laid down in the dark and lost himself with. It feels the same way. But he also knows that feeling ends the moment after someone comes; the loneliness closes in again as he flees into the night before his lover notices he’s gone.

“Spencer, c’mere…” Aaron’s voice has that low timbre he can’t resist, and Spencer reaches for Aaron’s mouth blindly, drawing him in. _I want to get lost…_

He clasps Aaron’s jaw with too much force, pushes into his mouth too quickly, as Aaron gasps and withstands it. Then, a moment later, Aaron is hungrily chasing Spencer’s lips when he comes up for air, the faint burn of stubble rasping Spencer’s mouth. Aaron’s hands flash up and bury themselves hard into Spencer’s hair, pulling until his scalp tingles. They break apart and come right back to each other in wet, brutal pulls. It’s dizzying and too fast, and all Spencer wants is Aaron bucking under him, and damn the consequences. Then Aaron’s hands abandon Spencer’s hair in favor of an iron grip on his hips as he yanks him off the coffee table and forces Spencer to stumble onto the sofa and into Aaron’s lap awkwardly. They are ripped away from their kiss by the movement, and then Spencer feels Aaron solidly against his thighs, pressing too hard into the seam of his dress pants.

 _Fuck._

Aaron mutters much the same as he mouths into Spencer’s neck and then uses his grip to pull him firmly down into his lap until they both growl at the pressure. Aaron bites down and Spencer twitches, making an ‘ah’ sound as he leans into it and away from Aaron’s lap. Hands tighten around Spencer’s hips again and pull him back, both meeting each other hard and with a gasp of surprise.

It flips something in Spencer and the desire takes over, turning into a blind need that erases the identity of the body he’s pressed against. It’s just heat, and appetite, and a slick, vital need to push into someone and fuck until he loses himself in the cries and the slip and the mad rush that feels like dying and living in the same instant. The smell of it is in his brain, the chorus of moans and curses and shouts of ‘yes!’ all mixed as one, the dirty satisfaction of slipping free afterwards, once you are limp and sated and filthy all over…

He clamps his hands on shoulders, ignoring the hiss of discomfort, and pins them back into the couch. He’s working his mouth down a throat, licking and biting into the hollow between the collarbones, and moving down. His ass shifts, and a hard length pushes against him in just the right way, his pants accentuating the stab of pleasure.

“Fuck, Spence!” Aaron gasps, and suddenly the fog clears. Spencer leans away and sees Aaron pinned back into the sofa, blush scorching up his throat, mouth swollen, pupils blown strangely in his weary eyes. “You’re gonna make me come in my pants…” He’s huffing like he can’t think of anything better, like this is everything he wants…

And Spencer is out of his lap and backed into the corner of the couch in an instant. It happens so quickly that Aaron takes a long moment to process it, his arousal slowly melting into confusion.

“What… Spence?”

“I’m sorry…”

“What? Why?”

Spencer is struggling to breathe, and the way he landed in the sofa corner is highlighting his hard-on, which he only notices after the fact.

“Because just now… you weren’t you.”

“Huh?”

“You were… every woman I’ve ever slept with,” Spencer chokes and looks away. “You weren’t you. You were just a body I needed to screw. I-I’m sorry… I don’t know why… something just switched inside and I…”

Aaron’s eyes go wide but he does his best not to react. His hair is sticking up where Spencer grabbed it, and he’s still flushed and hard everywhere. He’s fucking stunning. Spencer makes a mournful sound at how screwed up his life is that he can’t have uncomplicated sex with someone he’s attracted to.

“I-I guess I don’t know how to do this…”

He watches Aaron gulp. “Neither of us knows how-”

“No, Aaron, I mean, I don’t know how to have anything but anonymous sex.”

“Oh.”

Spencer feels like something someone’s just scraped off their shoe. An accredited piece of trash, a whore with a doctorate. Aaron shifts on the couch uncomfortably, pressing a hand down over the tent in his pants as if it won’t be a concern if neither of them notices it. He clears his throat.

“Well, maybe we were moving too fast anyway. Maybe it’s not the right time.”

Spencer withers, his arousal official erased. Aaron’s tone suggests that it’s just a setback, but no one wants to be told that they aren’t what their lover is fantasizing about. And the thing is, Spencer _has_ been fantasizing about Aaron for weeks. And they haven’t been hazy fantasies either – they are detailed, explicit, volcanic…

“I want you…” he sputters weakly, panicked that he’s torched everything they’ve achieved so far.

“It’s been a crazy few weeks,” Aaron smiles gently, and somehow that ratchets up Spencer’s panic even more. “We probably need to calm down a little. Approach this in a more considered way.”

“Aaron, I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“I know you are, and it’s okay. Really.” The smile persists and it’s killing Spencer. Aaron stares for a moment and then snaps out of it, revealing nothing. “I should go…” 

He grabs his ruined shirt and jacket next to him and gets up from the couch with a groan and a lurch that leaves him wobbling and unsteady. Spencer’s up in a flash, holding his sides lightly until he gets his feet under him. Aaron’s face has gotten even paler.

“Oh… dizzy…”

“Sit back down.”

“No, I should go…”

“You can stay here,” Spencer says quickly, and then looks away when Aaron’s eyes find him and question him silently. “You’re exhausted and injured. Blood loss is messing with your balance and fine motor control. You shouldn’t be driving.”

Aaron sighs and Spencer turns back to find him watching him tiredly. Spencer shrugs, face heating.

“Look, I made a mess of this and we’re both embarrassed by my immaturity… but you need to rest. That’s a fact. And I’m still your friend and worried about you. That’s also a fact. So… you can stay here if you want. I mean, I’d understand if you decided to go home – see Jack, get away from _this_ \- whatever. But if you do that I’ll insist on you taking a cab, okay?”

He looks away from Aaron’s tired, dark gaze.

“If you get wrapped around a phone pole because I’ve made you feel uncomfortable, I won’t forgive myself, so… You can take the bed. I’ll crash out here. It’s no problem.”

There’s a period of silence. Then, “You haven’t made me uncomfortable.”

“Yeah, sure,” Spencer snorts. But then Aaron’s hand is a warm weight on his shoulder.

“You haven’t,” he says again quietly but firmly. “It’s okay if it takes us a while, Spencer.”

“I don’t think it is…” Spencer grumbles under his breath, but when he looks back at Aaron, he’s smiling. “Why are you letting me off the hook?”

“There’s no hook, Spence,” he says simply, and then sags as he wobbles unsteadily in Spencer’s grip. “Dammit…”

“C’mon. Time to lie down. This way.”

Spencer guides him towards the bedroom, and though Aaron knows the way, he lets Spencer manhandle him without comment. There’s just a slight curl to his mouth that Spencer finds maddening.

“Don’t know why you’re so content,” he mutters when they get there, Spencer forcing him to sit on the mattress as he goes through his closet to find something Aaron can wear. “Been shot, scolded, emotionally exposed, and cock blocked. This is a terrible evening.”

Aaron chuckles behind him. “I’ve had much worse. Trust me.”

“That’s not comforting.”

Spencer turns and gives Aaron clothes to change into, and the smile is still there, - bigger, beaming up at him mysteriously and making Spencer irritated by its opaqueness.

“You’re acting weird,” he says too sharply. Aaron just laughs again and accepts the clothes, his hands brushing warmly against Spencer’s as he takes them.

“Thank you.”

“Thank you?? For saying you’re weird?”

Aaron’s happy to continue being frustrating, and when he doesn’t appear to offer up any further answers, Spencer turns back to the closet with a huff, feeling edgy and dumb and very disappointed in himself. He attacks the closet again.

“I’m just gonna get some pjs, then I’ll be out of your hair.”

There’s no comment from Aaron, so Spencer looks back and finds him unbuckling his pants. Spencer shifts his eyes back to the closet but doesn’t really see anything, listening intently to the tinkle of Aaron’s buckle as it moves, and the soft hiss of fabric being discarded. A rush of heat flares over him again, and then he angrily shoves it aside. One humiliation per evening is more than enough for him.

He pulls out a t-shirt to sleep in, and quickly undoes his dress shirt, tossing it uncharacteristically to the floor rather than putting it away. He feels pressured, needing to get out of the room before he says or does anything else, but he can’t find the spare sleeping pants he bought a week ago in his closet. It’s dark, and he’s distracted by the lack of sound coming from behind him, and his own whirring, neurotic head… Where _the hell_ are those pants?!? He’s clutching his t-shirt and still rooting around in vain, and decides that he should start babbling some banalities so that Aaron doesn’t become as uncomfortable as he is.

“Use whatever you need, okay? Bathroom, kitchen, everything’s at your disposal. There are new towels in the bathroom, and the shower’s sort of amazing, so… If you need anything you can’t find, I’ll be out-”

Suddenly, there’s a line of warmth behind him from waist to shoulders. He didn’t hear any movement at all. Then arms wrap loosely around him and a chin rests on his shoulder.

“Thank you, Spencer,” Aaron rumbles softly. Spencer can’t do anything but make dry clicking sounds as arms squeeze him just a fraction closer. “Thank you for worrying… thank you for everything tonight.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Spencer murmurs, one arm rising without permission and brushing Aaron’s across his waist.

“I’m not. I care about this, about how it plays out. And tonight you showed me that you care about it too. You care enough to do it right. That’s something I was unsure of before.”

“Of course _I care_ about this,” Spencer whispers, his fingers now clutching at one of Aaron’s hands. There’s a moment where nothing happens, and then Aaron’s other hand skims lightly across Spencer bare stomach, like he’s mapping him out. Spencer sighs and it shudders out of him awkwardly, heat racing after the trail of Aaron’s fingers. When he speaks, his voice breaks over the words. “I’m completely messed up over you.”

“So am I,” Aaron breathes into Spencer’s neck, making him vibrate before he can stop it. “That’s why I had to thank you. It’s nice to know I’m not alone.”

Aaron snuggles a little closer and Spencer feels him solid and steady against his back. He gasps out a curse and is on fire again. How did he… what’s happening right now?

Aaron lets out a long, uneven sigh that breezes over Spencer’s clavicle. “One of the few benefits of age is patience, Spencer. Don’t tie yourself in knots over this tonight.”

Aaron’s fingers are still exploring. Nothing too suggestive, just a tickling, curious meandering that both focuses Spencer’s attention and distracts him completely. Against his back, Spencer can feel the roughness of the scars across Aaron’s stomach, brushing briefly when he breathes in. Somehow, this barest of touches ignites Spencer more than the grappling on the couch did. Spencer finds himself trying to arch into the touch, to push back against Aaron, but Aaron’s free hand holds him in place on his hip.

“You don’t understand,” Spencer whispers damply, as his eyes slip closed. “I want you. I have since that night at Georgetown. Getting sandbagged by my memories tonight… it’s so frustrating and it confuses me.”

Aaron’s fingers trip slowly over Spencer’s ribs. They skim the rise of the bones and then sink into the hollows between them. It’s methodical, painstaking, and he doesn’t say a thing while he does it. He follows one rib to the center of Spencer’s chest and then caresses the line between his hemispheres with a slow warmth that aches. Spencer gasps softly, never having been touched this way, never so quietly or with such reverence. No one’s ever had the time for that. Then Aaron’s hand drifts across him until it circles his left nipple. The fingers skim, not really teasing, just seeking, and then Aaron’s palm covers that part of him, solid and firm, connecting him to Spencer’s heart pulsing beneath. Spencer arches again and Aaron lets him, the pressure of his palm pushing back just so. His breath comes shallow and short across Spencer’s neck, and Spencer drops his head back to lean on Aaron, his hair splaying over Aaron’s shoulder as he sighs expansively. Aaron’s other hand begins moving, drifting away from Spencer’s hip and skimming across his abdomen, lingering over his belly button and the trail of hair below it. Spencer whimpers – just a single note before he stifles it and bites back the rest. His eyes are still shut, imagining Aaron through his touch alone. He tries not to give too much away, but he already feels restricted by what little clothing he’s wearing, and his hand releases the t-shirt without warning making it thud at his feet noticeably. 

Aaron’s stuttered breath shifts. His shoulders move too, slowly, so that he almost seems to be cradling Spencer’s body with his own from behind. His mouth skims along Spencer’s neck, and Spencer stretches it so he has plenty to work with. And then Aaron stops, gasping openmouthed at Spencer’s throat where it meets his jaw. There’s a halo of his breath, and then a halted moment before his lips close over Spencer’s pulse point. Spencer holds his breath as Aaron sucks, but it’s gentle, unhurried, absolutely maddening. And his palm over Spencer’s heart pushes into him with more confidence.

“Aaron…” It comes out almost without sound, but it is definitely a question. One of Spencer’s hands reaches for Aaron’s hip and holds it, so that he can’t back away.

“We don’t have to hurry,” Aaron licks into Spencer’s skin. 

“That’s not true,” Spencer wheezes, wanting Aaron’s mouth to move, to consume him.

“You haven’t changed in two weeks.” Aaron bites down slowly and the burn it sends through Spencer’s blood makes him moan.

“That doesn’t mean I won’t ever change again.”

“Okay,” Aaron kisses down Spencer’s neck, scores his teeth along the ridge of Spencer’s shoulder while a hand twirls dangerously along his lower belly. “So, what if I came here this evening and you had changed? What if you were a woman this time? If I kissed you and told you I wanted you, even though your face was new to me – because I am in love with you – would you let me have you?”

Spencer goes still, his eyes flicking open for the first time. “You…”

Aaron’s hand over Spencer’s heart rises until it can turn his jaw to look at Aaron in the gloom. “If I can see _you_ behind any face you wear,” he whispers. “Then we’re not on a clock, are we? We can take all the time we need to figure each other out.”

Spencer just blinks, and Aaron watches it closely before leaning in and stealing his confusion with his lips. He laps softly, pushes, and then goes deep when Spencer opens under him, a moan of surprise mixing with Aaron’s gentle sound of victory. One hand holds Spencer close on his jaw while the other presses him back against Aaron’s solid presence behind him. The moment changes on them, though there’s nothing dramatic about it. Spencer just feels his body _stop resisting_ , and that’s enough to give him a tender thread of hope.

They slip apart, and Spencer becomes riveted to the way Aaron licks the taste of Spencer off his lips afterwards, like he doesn’t want to waste any of it.

“If time isn’t a factor, then it doesn’t have to be like every other affair you’ve had, Spence. It can be something completely new that we discover together,” Aaron murmurs. “That’s what you want, right?”

“Yes,” Spencer breathes. _Yes, yes… more than anything…_

Aaron nuzzles back in, brushing their noses and then burrowing into Spencer’s cheek with a long sigh. “Well, okay then.”

He sounds utterly satisfied, but Spencer is tingling all over and Aaron is hard behind him. They hold each other like that for a while, and Spencer wonders if he should let it go. This is a tremendous step forward and perhaps that’s enough for one night. But he can’t stop imagining Aaron taking a woman to bed while only seeing the man he wants beneath her face. It sets him on fire, makes him feel alive and seen in a way he’s never experienced before. Has he ever made love to someone like that? Where he not only saw them, but they saw _him_ too? Probably not since his first love. Not since he was sixteen years old.

His breath comes short as his fingers find Aaron’s hand on his belly and gently nudge it lower. His heart is slamming against his ribs and his mouth has suddenly gone dry. Oh man… he’s sixteen again… Aaron’s arm tenses but he allows his hand to be moved slowly, only stopping when his fingers brush the fabric of Spencer’s waistband.

“Aaron…” Spencer breathes and can’t get any more out.

The hand remains still above Spencer’s dress pants, as Spencer circles his own fingers into Aaron’s skin again and again. _Touch me…_ Then Aaron makes an odd noise, kissing Spencer’s cheek before his hand blindly moves lower and feels out Spencer’s belt. His other hand drifts down to join the first and Spencer leans into Aaron’s body for support as Aaron works the belt buckle and fabric, and then slowly pushes his hand under Spencer’s clothes.

The heat when they connect rocks Spencer a little. He thought he was ready, but Aaron’s grip searching tentatively along him, over him, blows out a few of Spencer’s circuits. Aaron palms him from underneath, sending an electric stab right through his length. Spencer hisses and presses back into Aaron’s body in a wordless _yes._ Then Aaron’s other hand grabs Spencer’s hip and pulls him even closer, so that he’s hard and unambiguous against Spencer now.

“Mmmm…” Aaron groans absently, his hand now slowly working Spencer in what little room his dress pants provide. From behind, his hips pulse gently, like a dance, keeping rhythm with his hand. Spencer’s mind finally comes back online as his hands reach back to curve over Aaron’s hips and encourage his rhythm. His fingers work the fabric at Aaron’s waist – he realizes he’s in the sleeping pants he offered him – and then slips his fingers easily beneath the elastic waistband. Aaron gasps a little against Spencer’s neck but doesn’t do anything else until Spencer reaches back as far as he can and sinks his fingers into the swell of Aaron’s ass, pushing his pants down enough to get a firm grip. Aaron’s mouth pulls away from Spencer with a moan and his hips jab forward, unceremoniously ramming his cock against Spencer’s ass.

“Spence…” His hand works Spencer harder and Spencer whimpers when Aaron’s palm moves over the head of him and smears him along his length.

“Take me to bed, Aaron,” he begs, trying to lean back into Aaron’s cock while also pressing into his hand at the same time. “If you would’ve been just as happy to have me with another face, have me now with this one. Please.” 

Then Aaron’s hand is ripped from his pants and Spencer is spun so he can be wrapped up in Aaron’s grip and kissed like they need each other to survive. Aaron goes at Spencer with his teeth and tongue, nipping, skimming, sucking without the measured care he showed before. It makes Spencer throb and swell under the assault, smiling against the rough lips as he tries to keep up and frogmarch them back towards the bed. Aaron hits the edge of the mattress and stumbles forward into Spencer to keep his balance, his hard-on crashing against Spencer’s as they both hiss. Then Aaron’s hands are buried in Spencer’s tangles, pulling him close for rough, deep pulls on his lips, his mouth stealing him mindlessly with desperate, wet gasps. Spencer grabs Aaron’s shoulders and immediately regrets it when Aaron yelps and hitches to the left.

“Sorry…” Spencer gusts. He’s lightheaded and his body is racing ahead of him. He glances down and sees their hips bumping, fabric bunched and tight around them. “Fuck, Aaron… take them off. I wanna see you…”

It comes out without thought. He wants to look at the man he’s going to fuck. Then it hits him: he’s going to have sex with a man…

He strips off his own clothes without another thought. He wants this. _Lead by example,_ he thinks as he hops around awkwardly trying to shake off his socks. Aaron watches him, blown out and a little confused, and then he’s shimmying out of the pants he borrowed and standing in the dim light of the bedroom, naked and unashamed, looking at Spencer like he’s his next meal.

Spencer closes the distance, crashing against Aaron and wrapping him up in a tight hug. Aaron’s arms snap around him, tightening almost painfully as they both huff when they come together skin-to-skin. There’s nothing like the heat of another person’s skin on yours; nothing instantly signals intimacy the way that touch does. Spencer groans plaintively, his arms squeezing, burying his face in Aaron’s neck. Every time he’s ever been with someone, it was to get _this_. It’s almost more of a high than getting off. This brush of skin on skin says ‘trust’, even if it’s temporary. It says ‘come in’, and it is a kind of surrender. We’re never more vulnerable, never more in harm’s way than while in the arms of another. But every woman he’s had, no matter how much she wanted him or for what reason, no matter how close she held him, he’s never let them in. He couldn’t. Now he finds himself gasping and strung out on this feeling he’s never allowed himself to feel, panicked and horny and resolutely alive in someone else’s arms.

“Spencer?” Aaron wheezes. Spencer tightens his arms, afraid to let go.

“Oh god, oh god…” he chants into Aaron’s shoulder as Aaron’s hands begin to move in wide circles over his back. “You feel _soooo good…_ just like this. It’s crazy… it’s making me crazy…”

“We can stop.”

“No, no way, no…” he gulps, trying to pull it together a little. “Lie down. Rest your shoulder. Yeah… lie down.”

Spencer releases him and Aaron looks at him for a moment, flushed and worried, before doing as he asks. He sits on the bed and then shuffles over and away from the edge while Spencer watches. There’s only light from the bedroom windows, and there are shades for privacy, so it’s next to no light at all. But Spencer can make out Aaron’s runner’s body, and his messed up hair, and maybe even some of his more horrific scars. And he knows how aroused he is without having to look – it’s in his raspy breathing and the way he’s leaning forward in the bed when Spencer doesn’t immediately climb in next to him. Spencer can still feel Aaron’s body against him, his cock digging into his hip, his hands tracing across his skin, his mouth at his throat…

“Spencer?”

“You’re fucking gorgeous, Aaron.” Aaron freezes on the bed but Spencer doesn’t give that reaction any room to breathe. He crawls onto the bed, over Aaron and pushes him back into the pillows wordlessly. “I knew you would be. I _knew_ it,” he murmurs before claiming Aaron’s mouth and wringing a low moan from it.

Aaron’s hands are in his hair again, tugging and then circling into his scalp to massage the tingling away. He does it over and over as Spencer hungrily scores Aaron’s mouth. He gets lost in the burn from his five o’clock shadow not understanding that he’ll pay for it later. He’s learning how to kiss him, because it’s not what he expects – there isn’t just one way. The lead up to this was tender and barely-there; it had feeling, memory, and caution. This is something else. There’s still feeling behind it – a need to please – but it’s also rough and demanding, like it could pin you down and take its own pleasure from you mindlessly. And that’s something Spencer wants almost as much as intimacy. He tries it on to see if it works, clutching a handful of Aaron’s hair and tugging his head to the side to expose his neck and jaw. Then Spencer dips in and skims the skin with his teeth a moment before he sinks in for a bite. Aaron bucks under him and then moans. It sounds like it hurts, so Spencer backs off with a pop of his lips, but he finds Aaron’s eyes searching his in the dark, desperate, as he breathes hard through his mouth.

“Do it again,” he demands, but there’s a plea in his tone too. “Harder.”

Spencer kisses him brutally, pulling back enough to drag Aaron’s lower lip with him as he goes, and then he bites it until Aaron yelps. It’s not what Spencer expects and he worries a little as Aaron’s cry goes straight to his dick like an electric current, but then Aaron heaves beneath him and brings their cocks crashing against each other, and it’s clear Aaron is with him completely.

“Rough?” Spencer mumbles curiously into Aaron’s neck. “Not what I thought…”

“Not usually,” Aaron gasps back, his hands manhandling Spencer’s hair as if he’s thinking about punishing him back. “But… you’ve got me worked up…”

And that makes every last inch of Spencer throb in unison. He breathes out a painful ‘Ugh’, and then curls his body around Aaron’s, pulling him against him, painfully close, before he ducks down and marks his throat until he tastes copper.

“Fuck, Spencer!” Aaron’s hands clasp across Spencer’s back and tighten until it’s hard to breathe. When their abdomens shift as they throb together, wet smears cool their skin. Spencer grinds down hard, teeth gritted at the sudden, overwhelming pull behind his balls. They slip and skip together, Aaron’s hands gripping too tightly and somehow encouraging them into a stuttered rhythm simultaneously. It’s imperfect, confused, too intense, but Spencer loses himself in the sounds of them grasping and grunting, and the frustrated circling of their hips that’s destined to disappoint. His body is reacting on instinct, wanting to push, to bury himself in tight, wet heat, but his mind swirls. What are they going to do? What should they try?

Spencer licks his way down Aaron’s neck as Aaron can do nothing but moan and punch his hips up against Spencer’s. Then Spencer makes a gambit for his attention, biting the hollow of Aaron’s neck while snaking a hand down between their bellies and capturing Aaron’s cock tightly.

Aaron howls and looks at Spencer with a shocked expression.

“What do you want?” Spencer nips into his mouth, stroking slowly and making Aaron’s eyes roll back as he moans. “This?” Aaron doesn’t react, eyes glazed, panting through the assaulted feeling. “Do you want to fuck me?” Spencer whispers, more than a little worried about the answer. He’s not sure if they can do this.

The harsh language seems to snap Aaron back to himself. His gaze focuses and he reflects Spencer’s worry back to him as he gasps. “I don’t… I’m not sure…”

Spencer huffs out the anxiety that suddenly twisted him. He smiles and then kisses Aaron’s confused mouth, making it less violent, but no less intense, as he grinds against Aaron and his own hand working him to exasperation.

“S’okay,” he whispers when he comes up for air, resting his head against Aaron’s for balance. “I don’t know either…”

Aaron gasps out a bark of laughter and then stretches to nip Spencer’s jaw. He breezes his shallow breaths into Spencer’s neck as his hands skim down Spencer’s back to curl around his ass, drawing him close as his hips continue bucking on their own.

“Might not have to worry,” he rumbles into Spencer’s throat. “The way you’re working me… could be all over really soon…”

“Can’t help it,” Spencer chokes when Aaron’s teeth finally find him and enact their revenge. “You feel… _jesus_ … I never thought I’d be making this much time for another man’s dick…”

Aaron chuckles again in between gasps and tiny little mewling sounds that are slowly unraveling Spencer’s boundaries. And then his mind just switches gears on him. 

Spencer pulls away and slithers down until he’s above Aaron’s cock, flushed, slicked, and hard along his scarred belly. It’s the first time he’s had a really good look and there’s something about the moment that stills him. Aaron’s hips continue bucking though there’s no friction to be had anymore, and Spencer can hear Aaron’s confused rasping as he struggles in the sheets to figure out what’s happening. But what really gets him is that this isn’t just a sexual moment separated from everything else, like a single frame of porn – titillating because of its content rather than context. This is _Aaron_. This is a snapshot of a man whose never done this before, and _Spencer has done this to him._ Aaron wants this so much that he’s desperate, almost non-verbal with it.

As if on cue, Aaron whimpers Spencer’s name, and he looks up his body to find Aaron pinioned on his good arm, gaping and wide-eyed, stunned into silence by need. And that decides it. Spencer holds Aaron’s gaze as he lowers himself and flicks his tongue to take a long, slow swipe. His whole body bursts with heat that makes him prickle all over, goosebumps rising as he gets as close to Aaron’s warmth as he can. He doesn’t hesitate; it feels right, he feels fine. And the look on Aaron’s face makes his cock pulse dangerously. Perhaps he could come now if Aaron asked him to. He moans that into Aaron’s dick, curling his own cock between his thighs to keep himself in check. Aaron chokes loudly, his dick twitching as Spencer’s tongue slips around him.

“Ugh…” Aaron struggles for air, eyes riveted to Spencer’s mouth in the gloom. And then Spencer takes him into his mouth, trying to remember the sensations he’s enjoyed in the past without remembering _too_ much. Aaron makes a terrible sound, like he’s being strangled, and when Spencer’s eyes flick to his, he’s leaning forward as hard as he can on his elbow and gulping. His chest heaves and his eyes are pleading. They roll wildly when Spencer tries a long suck that brings Aaron dangerously close to choking him. There’s an odd taste to him and then Aaron twitches and growls as if someone else is controlling him. His cock bucks to the back of Spencer’s throat when his body rolls suddenly, making Spencer cough violently and pulling back so he can breathe. He spits out Aaron’s cock – that’s not how he wanted things to go – and it bounces against Aaron’s scars angrily, leaving a spit trail down Spencer’s chin as he tries to calm his breathing. _Oops…_

“Sorry…” he gulps.

Aaron growls incoherently and punches his head back into the mattress. Spencer’s gut twists at the disappointment, and his back straightens as he resolves to improve.

“I can do better…” he mumbles, and places a hand on Aaron’s hip to forestall the choking scenario again.

But he doesn’t get a chance. Aaron rears up, howling a little at his sore shoulder, and then barrels into Spencer, pushing him back on his ass with a solid palm spread over his stomach. His other hand pins Spencer’s thigh to the mattress a moment before Aaron dips low and swallows Spencer completely. And then Spencer understands the strangling sounds and wordlessness; he can’t think beyond the tight, sucking heat of Aaron around his cock. It’s the slipping of his mouth, the thrill of his teeth when he loses control, the quiet lapping noise he makes as he gags and tries to manage all of him. Spencer watches the dark tufts of Aaron’s head bob in his lap and he chokes, losing control. Aaron groans a little when Spencer’s hips buck. He pulls off almost completely and Spencer curses softly when Aaron sucks the tip of him with too much force, pulling off for an instant and licking instead.

“S’okay, I can handle it,” Aaron gasps, but it seems like he’s talking to himself. “It’s funny, but I don’t mind the taste…”

Spencer suddenly realizes what Aaron expects to happen, and for a split second Spencer wants to grab him by the back of his head and fuck Aaron’s mouth until the imminent pulse in his balls turns him inside out.

“No,” he wheezes, shaking his brutality off, and pulling Aaron to his mouth instead. He can taste something new there – a strange muskiness that isn’t altogether unpleasant – and then gets turned on even more when he realizes _it’s him._ “Not your mouth,” he breathes between gasping pulls. 

“Like you weren’t going to do that for me?” Aaron smirks against his lips and nips Spencer’s tongue when he flashes it teasingly.

“I would’ve. I still could, Aaron. You caught me off guard is all… the gag reflex… but I saw you, I saw how you wanted it. I still can do-”

“Why is it okay for me and not for you?” Aaron mouths across him and then sabotages his response when he casually wraps his palm around Spencer’s dick. Spencer hisses and bites his lip, still too close and eagerly showing that by trickling across Aaron’s fingers without warning. Aaron chuckles and Spencer grunts angrily, but it loses all heat when Aaron raises his hand to his mouth and licks the embarrassment away.

“Hmmm. Yeah, I really don’t have a problem with this. How interesting…”

Spencer watches Aaron’s mouth and experiences a throb so painful that it mercifully wilts his arousal a little. “Could you… c-could you stop doing that?” Spencer chokes out. Aaron just smiles like he’s discovered Spencer’s kryptonite. He shuffles closer, nuzzling in while wrapping his hand around Spencer’s cock again.

“So, what do you want, Spence?” Aaron murmurs, his hand working Spencer like it’s nothing, like it isn’t turning him into a puddle of useless human. “If not my mouth, what? Tell me.”

“I-I dunno…” he gasps helplessly before he rolls his eyes shut against another relentless wave of desire. “ _Please_ stop that…”

Aaron’s hand eases up, but the rhythm continues. “No, I don’t think so,” he breathes into Spencer’s mouth.

“Gonna make me come,” Spencer whines.

“That’s sorta the point.” He can feel Aaron smiling. Damn him. “You’re turned on and you’re helpless… in my hands… _because_ of my hands… fuck, Spence, it’s beautiful. Don’t ask me to stop.”

Spencer’s eyes flick open and stare straight into Aaron. He struggles around his cresting want to choke out the next part. “T-that’s… what I want…”

His hand reaches blindly and curls around Aaron, thumbing the wetness around his crown as Aaron gasps. “What?” 

Spencer breathes loud and low to gain a tiny foothold of control, skimming his fingers over Aaron’s hardness absently. “ _With_ you… not _to_ you… Understand?”

His mind is getting disconnected and choppy on him, but when he looks at Aaron, he nods and then leans in to take Spencer’s mouth with feeling that doesn’t match the urgency of their need. Aaron pushes in, goes deep, and murmurs something contented and relieved that makes Spencer rise on unsteady thighs and press Aaron gently back into the mattress. Aaron objects but Spencer just nips ‘shoulder’ into his lips and Aaron gives in.

He stretches, fumbles loudly with a drawer of the nightstand, and then palms what he wants as Aaron watches. It’s a half-used bottle of lube, and Aaron raises an eyebrow as Spencer pops the lid and shrugs.

“I’m a single man living alone… and sometimes I don’t want to deal with people.”

Aaron blinks and somehow that seems like it is acceptance, so he moves on, pooling a measure in his hand before reaching between them and making them both gasp.

“It’s a bit cool…” Spencer breathes, but then he pushes down and they slip together with ease making them both groan shamefully. “Oooohhh, but worth it…”

“Oh, _Spence_ …” Aaron bites his lip and then clamps his hands on Spencer’s ribs dragging him in a long, slow, wet line along his torso. It feels possessive and amazing, setting off fireworks in Spencer’s chest. But the way Aaron whimpers, his wrecked gaze when he opens his eyes and stares into Spencer like he’d give up everything for this moment… Spencer loses it a little when he realizes that the possession goes both ways.

Aaron’s hands grind them slowly again but that’s all he can manage before Spencer’s hips begin rolling to their own rhythm. He closes his eyes and arches his back, placing incredible pressure against their pelvises, and the slip makes the discomfort exquisite. Their cocks slide together, pinch for an instant, and then slip away as they skip over rioting muscles, and scars, and the crush of thighs. 

One of Aaron’s hands grabs Spencer’s ass and taps him against his balls, producing a whine that makes Spencer focus on his face. Aaron’s punched his head back into the pillows and to the side, gasping quietly, eyes closed and face creased with concentration. Spencer keeps moving, but slides a hand beneath him, sliding fingers around the tight heat of Aaron’s balls as they stroke together. Aaron’s eyes flick to Spencer’s quickly. Spencer just licks his lips slowly, hips tapping, cocks hard and tight beneath him. But his message is clear as Aaron’s mouth drops open and his grip on Spencer digs in so brutally it’s sure to leave marks afterwards. _I’d take you any way you want…_

And then Aaron arches hard, eyes rolling back and neck cording as he strains for air. He pulses between their clenched abdomens and Spencer grinds mercilessly to work him completely. When he sags under Spencer wheezing and limp, they are a hot, sticky mess. And Spencer’s hips keep rolling them through it.

He tries to be subtle about it, but his dick is painfully hard against Aaron’s spent one. He can’t find the friction he needs anymore and he doesn’t know what to do. He keeps huffing and arching, shutting his eyes and trying to get there by replaying Aaron’s face in his mind as he comes under him. Then there’s a small snap and Aaron wiggles beneath him for an instant before fingers wrap around his cock tightly. Spencer’s eyes flick open and find Aaron staring up at him, flushed but sated, gaze huge and soft, still trying to catch his breath.

“That’s it,” he mumbles. “Look at me.” And Spencer does. Intensely. Aaron’s fingers tighten around his cock and it whites out the edges of Spencer’s vision for a second as his chest stutters. His body responds by arching hard into that grip, making it even more immediate. He doesn’t know what’s going on, but his body keeps reaching for it anyway.

“Look at me,” Aaron whispers again. Spencer does, hair swinging in front of his face as he strains and bows.

“I’m looking at you…”

“You see me?”

“I see you Aaron…”

“Good,” Aaron growls. “Because I see you, Spencer. You’re _all_ I see.”

Spencer whimpers and slams into Aaron’s hand hard, out of rhythm and painfully.

“Look at me when you fuck me, Spencer,” Aaron orders, and Spencer has to comply. Aaron’s gaze becomes everything, like he’s pulling him into his body as if they’ll exist there together from now on. And Spencer’s cock pings sharply in Aaron’s grip. 

“See how amazing this is,” Aaron whispers. “See how much this matters. And then come. However you have to. Please.”

Spencer cries out, a single, aching sob as he slams his eyes shut and reaches blindly to clasp Aaron’s head in his hand. He needs the connection – beyond throbbing into Aaron’s fist, beyond the series of moments that have led them both to this point, together and laid bare. His finger squirm into Aaron’s hair and twist. Aaron gasps his name and then Spencer loses control. He strokes hard, with his whole body, muscles in the one arm that’s holding him upright burning from the strain. He fists Aaron’s hair, desperately begs for air against Aaron’s cheek, and slams into that tight grip until he bursts, every part of him stunned by the relief of it. He slides through the new mess on their bellies when his body doesn’t comprehend that it needs to _stop._ He’s breathless, shaking everywhere, and suddenly on the verge of tears. Has he ever made love until he cried before? Maybe that’s not something normal people do…

He can hear Aaron’s voice distantly, the smear of wet hands moving in light circles along his back to calm him. His arm finally gives out and he collapses into Aaron with an ungainly smack. He can hear Aaron chuckling, the rumble of it echoing through his chest and into him. Then Spencer is squirming, trying the marshal muscles and hands and finding a way to fight off what’s struggling in the back of his throat. Aaron shushes him, a hand now resting on the back of his neck, and it all crashes down. Spencer rubs away the wetness around his eyes with the back of his hand, and when that doesn’t work, he buries his face into Aaron’s neck until he can’t breathe.

“I love you,” he mouths, afraid to say it but forced to relieve the pressure somehow. He’s not sure Aaron hears it, and that’s probably for the best.

“Hey, Spence… it’s okay.” Aaron cuddles him closer, despite the mess, despite everything. “I’ve got you, all right? Just relax for a minute. That was quite something, you know…”

Aaron laughs again, rocking them both with the gentle, rolling sound. And Spencer does as he’s told, lying in warm arms, thoroughly ruined for the rest of his life by an experience he’ll never eclipse. The ghosts of old lovers are no longer a fear, only the memory of _this lover_ is. Because Aaron makes him real, and he’s needed his eyes all along to be seen.

 

Eventually, they have to move. It’s just _gross_ otherwise. Spencer makes quick work of it in the bathroom, suddenly worried about _what comes next._ This is the point where he usually leaves. Or he waits for them to fall asleep first.

He walks back to the bed, scrubbing himself with a towel and offering Aaron a clean one for his turn. Aaron gets up gingerly, being the worse for wear in more ways than one, and brushes his lips against Spencer’s cheek before he disappears into the shower.

And Spencer lies there, worrying.

“Some romantic figure you are,” he grumbles to himself as he frets and panics, and then listens for the shower. “The skin isn’t even dry yet, and you’re onto the next drama. Can’t even enjoy the fact that you’re in love…”

What if Aaron leaves? What if this changes absolutely nothing? What if he was disappointing? What if the sex was bad? He didn’t even bother to ask… Should he ask now, or is that too needy after the fact? Should he ask Aaron if he’ll spend the night? He’s never asked that before. He wants him to stay. He doesn’t want him to ever leave… but Aaron has a life, a child. Leaving would be inevitable, wouldn’t it?

“Wow. I can hear you thinking from over here.”

Spencer shifts on the pillows and sees Aaron outlined against the bathroom door, rubbing his hair with a towel.

“Tell me you aren’t lying there spinning…” His voice is warm. He’s joking with him.

“Okay, I won’t tell you that,” Spencer tries to match his tone while still being completely truthful.

Aaron sighs and tosses his towel back into the bathroom. Then he walks towards the bed. And he’s still absolutely stunning, all confident, useful muscles, sharp edges, and an indulgent smile. He stops at the edge of the mattress and looks Spencer over, the curl of his mouth increasing slightly. Spencer’s _done_ but he still feels the heat of those eyes as they linger over him. Then Aaron catches his gaze again and sighs. _Here it comes…_

“Are you gonna move over or what?”

“Huh?”

“Share the bed, Spence,” Aaron drawls pointedly, and waves a hand over him in the sheets. “You’re spread out like an exhausted spider right now. C’mon…”

“Oh.” He shuffles to the side and watches breathlessly as Aaron slides in. Then Aaron curls onto his side and stares at Spencer, waiting. It goes on and on, stretching in the silence of the night, making everything louder and stiller at once.

Aaron licks his lips eventually and jumps in. “You expected me to leave, didn’t you?”

“I… uh…”

“Do you want me to?” he whispers, lines around his eyes deepening a little.

Spencer shakes his head vehemently, but clamps his mouth shut because hysteria is lurking in the back of his throat.

_Don’t ever leave… if I was messed up before, I’m even more messed up now… but stay… give me a chance… I love you… I love you…_

Then a strange thing happens. Aaron goes still and the only thing that changes are his eyes. They get glassy and full as Spencer watches, mesmerized, and then, just when he thinks Aaron might say something to deflect from what’s happening, he opens his arms in a wordless invitation instead. And Spencer _moves_ , curling quickly and breathlessly into Aaron’s chest as his arms close around him. Against his ear, Aaron’s heart is hammering dangerously.

_Jesus…_

They lie awake like that for a long time, clinging to each other like it’s the last night of the world.


	12. March - September

There’s a time in every affair when nothing exists but bliss. Foolishly, we try to hold onto that believing it to be a stable, permanent condition. Aaron is old enough to know better, but still, he falls for it. Spencer becomes everything he wants – an intoxicating escape from the world Aaron has built around him. His mind, his body, his sex all pulling him in helplessly like a law of physics. He tells himself that he doesn’t have a choice, but, of course, that’s a lie. Every decision is a choice whether it feels voluntary or not, and Aaron _chooses_ Spencer every time he decides to go to his house from the airstrip rather than home, or he spends the night when he should relieve Jessica of some of her burdens, or when he dodges another team night out for the swaddled, quiet sanctuary of Spencer’s rooms, his arms, and his less-than-quiet mind.

And the sex surprises him, quite frankly. Aaron is fifty – he’s fit, but still, he’s sure he’s lost a step or two since he last attempted a relationship. And he was wrong about Spencer and his sexual needs. He assumed that Spencer picked up people with his changing faces because his libido as well as loneliness drove him to it. But it’s not like that at all. Sex for Spencer is the completest form of connection, and _that’s_ what he craves. Kinks are fine, and they both seem to have a few, but the act becomes this stripped-down, unvarnished expression of the things his complicated mind and muddled awkwardness can’t adequately explain. At first Aaron finds it to be charming, a passionate idiosyncrasy. But then he sees how it pervades Spencer’s personality, beyond desire. Early one morning, Aaron wakes to find himself alone in bed, dawn painting the room in grays and blues. He twists to find Spencer; his first instinct is still panic at finding him gone, wondering if he’s disappeared like the magic creature Aaron has made of him in his mind. He rolls and finds him curled into a chair across the room dressed only in boxer briefs, making huge, swooping lines on a tremendous board propped on folded knees. His eyes flick rapidly in the gloom, from the bed to the board and back again, through thick-rimmed glasses he only wears when he can’t be bothered to put in his contacts. 

“What are you doing?”

His fingers stop and his eyes flick to Aaron, discovering him awake for the first time even though he’s been watching him intensely. His blush is visible even in the half-light of dawn and sooty fingers grip his board closer.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Are you… drawing me?” Aaron leans up on an elbow in the sheets. He’s not angry, but perhaps a little embarrassed? Spencer just nods and bites his lip. Then Aaron is fired by a desire to know how Spencer sees him; his pulse speeds at the thought that he’d look upon his image and find himself transmogrified into something magical as well. Someone worthy of Spencer’s critical eyes, his intimidating mind. But this is just a middle-aged man’s vanity, wanting to appeal to a younger lover, to discover he’s as ensorcelled as Aaron is.

“Can I see it?”

“No,” Spencer clutches the board closer but looks apologetic. “I-it’s just a sketch. Not so good. You were just lying so still… I don’t get to draw from life too often. It was an opportunity I couldn’t turn down.”

“I won’t judge,” Aaron murmurs. “I know nothing about art anyway.”

“Everyone knows something about art,” Spencer snorts softly as he lowers the board to rest against the wall, drawing side in. “People know what they like and what they don’t, even if they can’t tell you why.”

Aaron supposes that’s true enough. He stares at Spencer as Spencer stares at his smudged fingers. He still looks guilty though.

“Do you do this a lot? Sketch while I’m sleeping?”

Spencer waits, watches him, and then nods ever so slightly, as if admitting to a terrible crime. Aaron surprises him by grinning, and he feels a flush of pride he can’t control wash across his body.

“Well, maybe someday you’ll let me see them, because I’d enjoy that. But when you’re ready, you know… when my opinion one way or the other doesn’t really matter.”

He’s chuckling because it’s a joke to him, this crushing finality Spencer thinks Aaron’s judgment holds, but in a flash Spencer is across the room, kneeling over him in the bed, kissing him brutally and pushing him back into the sheets with charcoal-stained fingers.

“Your opinion will always matter,” he licks into Aaron’s skin insistently. “ _You_ will always matter.”

The sex after that is urgent, needy, as if they both feel they are part of a desperate timeline. When Spencer comes, there are tears in the corners of his eyes that Aaron soothes away with his lips, trying to calm him, telling him that this is everything to Aaron, which it is, but Spencer seems determined not to believe him. And Aaron is left with that panic again: that he won’t be enough for a magical being, and one day he’ll wake up alone for real.

A few weeks later, Aaron is puttering around in Spencer’s office, looking for the whisk that Spencer claims he has left there for inscrutable reasons and now requires in the kitchen where it belongs. Aaron is mumbling about how straight-line thinking means that utensils tend to stay where they should rather than going on domestic adventures, and he shifts some banker’s boxes in a corner to find a worn portfolio behind them. Newsprint and finer cardstock peek out from the corners of the case, flashes of color and enticing blacks tempting him as much as the loose buckles on the case’s sides. He shouldn’t – it’s a terrible violation, like reading someone’s diary. Or so he’s been told. But he’s so enamored of this man, so eager to know his mind, to understand what he thinks and feels… surely, if he’s snooping because he _cares_ …

The portfolio slides open easily, offering up secrets without resistance. Some of the images he’s already seen – ones that Spencer showed him proudly, in his own self-effacing way. Aaron sets those aside – he’s already known their beauty. He finds hastily scrawled life drawings of strangers, sitting in window seats, on the bus, walking in half-realized pencil-made parks. Each one is but a moment of a life, but somehow, even in the roughest of drawings, he has captured uniqueness. A curve of the mouth, a dubious glance, fingers curled in a throwaway lattice of love. Spencer _sees_ people everywhere, and it squeezes Aaron’s heart sharply that Spencer’s spent so much of his life being unseen. Aaron keeps going. There are still lives of oddly shaped fruit in alarming colors, like declarations of mutant war. There are so many studies of coffee cups that Aaron chuckles a little – the artist’s addiction laid bare. There are fanciful beasts straight from the lava of Spencer’s volatile imagination: monkeys with fish tails, spiders playing guitar, girls with extra faces on their palms smiling in conversation, a snake with wings crying over a nest of unhatched eggs, a taco with a switchblade threatening a sky from which squirrels fall like snowflakes… all in delicate, inexplicable color combinations. Beautiful and wondrous and frightening, just like the mind that birthed them. 

Then Aaron sees them. A collection of drawings tucked behind all the others. Most are pencil sketches, blurred and yellowed as the cheap newsprint paper has aged. They are all women. Different kinds – skinny and curvy, long and round, neat and messy – and they are all asleep. His lovers. From memory, or not? It’s hard to tell. But they lie before him, unguarded, wholly who they can’t hide being as a stranger behind a disposable face captures their unspoken, secret selves. And none of them know, none of them have the faintest clue that they now live in a house with a man they spent a random night with. 

Aaron isn’t sure how he feels about this. His cop mind tells him that this is obsessive, collector behavior. In an unsub it would be a classic warning sign of psychosis. But he knows Spencer means none of these women harm; he’ll never revisit them. He wants to remember them – this way – the way they are in his mind rather than reality. Maybe he can pretend that he connected with them on some primal level, as if they were complicit in this secret-taking, rolling over and offering themselves to his interpretation. The true siren call of art: to be _inspiring._

He bites back the flare of jealousy that flashes over him like a fever, making his fingers shake and slip over the sketches. He has no right to be angry. Spencer was alone, terrifyingly and completely alone. Loneliness breaks you down, makes you do questionable, desperate things. He was just trying to hold onto these moments, the sane, connected seconds between the long hours of his inexplicable nightmare. Then Aaron’s fingers find himself, stripped to the waist, floating on a tossed surf of forgotten sheets, stretched long and easy and absolutely at peace in sleep. And he can’t breathe. He looks… well, it can’t be him. He’s never looked like this. Has he? There are more, so many. It stuns his mind and his fingers as he flips through them. Each drawing has _more_ than the previous one, as if he’s coming slowly into focus, and each drawing is more unique. The details get sharper, the lines more confident, as if Spencer’s fingers are getting familiar with Aaron’s forms and curves, and he takes liberties with them, elongating them, highlighting the parts that fascinate. The stretch of his abdomen, the curve of his jaw where it meets his throat, the thinness of his wrists in contrast to his large, working hands…

Aaron sits back heavily on his ass staring at the secret eyes of Spencer Reid, trying to catch his breath, to still his hammering heart.

Spencer never sketched a woman more than once, and few come close to the detail of these unadorned, visceral portraits. This is a form of connection Aaron never anticipated; it’s silent and private, like a couple brushing hands in a crowd. It is knowledge and trust, and a fierce undeniability yelled boldly in charcoal and ink smudges. On these pages, Aaron is the magical being, and Spencer is the helpless servant to his pull, like an acolyte readying the temple of some resplendent deity. The drawings are an escalating tide of joy, rising and more powerful as they progress. But there’s also fear in them – fear of the less worthy, fear of the forgotten, being tossed aside, insignificant. How has Aaron missed _this?_

“Hey,” Spencer’s voice calls distantly from the kitchen. “Did you find it or what?”

Find what? Aaron panics, shuffling the drawings back into their secret world as quickly and safely as he can manage while his chest is being shattered by his torpedoing heart. He tries to think… oh, yes, the whisk.

“Yeah,” he yells back. “One minute. Hang tight.”

Now he has a task to distract him, something to focus on and push the rest of his turmoil into a corner for another, safer moment. He has to find that whisk. And he does, returning to the kitchen in triumph and offering it to the friend he worships. His hand shakes as he does and he moves around the kitchen to help, to seem busy, to hide how he feels the ground shift beneath him with this new knowledge of this secret being. Surely, it’s not meant to be this way, is it? He feels carried forward on a tide that’s bigger than anything he could create alone. The power and the recklessness of it frightens him, and he knows for certain that he’s never loved this way before.

The days stretch into weeks, and then the weeks into months, and the power doesn’t fade. But neither does the fear. Aaron finds himself standing on Spencer’s doorstep one evening, stomach clenched in panic during the few seconds it takes him to respond and let him inside. He fears Spencer has disappeared, or that he shows up to the door with a new face, or that the magic intensity has winked out like a spent lamp in the time he’s been away on a case. Spencer opens the door and smiles like he’s just learned how and is showing it off, and Aaron’s guts _don’t_ miraculously unknot as they always have. He realizes it’s been months, but they haven’t moved beyond that first away case in Tennessee. Aaron expects to lose Spencer, somehow, and he will unless he does something about it.

So, he does.

\---- 

He asks for this. Spencer objects, but he insists. He doesn’t know why they’ve put it off for so long but suspects it’s a mutual unwillingness to think of the feminizing implications of it. But, in the end, it’s nothing like that at all. It’s the thing that seals their fate.

Spencer pushes in slowly – there’s a lot of him, and it hurts. His face is flushed and worried above Aaron, recklessly aroused, but it’s crimped around the edges by his pervasive fear. He’s too wrapped up in pleasing Aaron to enjoy it, because right now Aaron is gritting through this and it feels like a heartbeat away from awkward failure and a rushed uncoupling. Spencer stops – he’s all the way in, shaking with need, eyes apprehensive and locked on Aaron trying to anticipate everything to avoid disaster. Aaron feels violated, exposed, spread-eagle and bent unnaturally, vulnerable under Spencer’s weight, his hands, and the piercing wedge of his cock deep inside him. His mind riots as he tries to find something to concentrate on until his body stills, accepts… he has a hysterical thought that he wonders how women ever come to enjoy this _domination_. Doesn’t it rankle? Don’t they wish for dicks too so they could do their fair share of the taking?

Then his mind is quiet. _Taking._ That’s not what this is about. He recalls the conversation that led to this moment.

_“I don’t want to.”_

_“Why?” Aaron licks into Spencer’s neck._

_“It’ll be painful. I don’t want to hurt you. Not for pleasure.” Spencer arches, leans hard against Aaron’s mouth even as he protests._

_“Millions of gay men throughout history can’t be wrong, Spence,” Aaron huffs. Humor usually works wonders on Spencer’s resistance. “Besides, why else would the male g-spot be located in our anuses?”_

_“That’s a specious connection I won’t substantiate by arguing against it.” Spencer yanks Aaron’s jaw up and pushes in with tongue and teeth and too much want. Whether he admits it or not, part of him wants to, Aaron can feel it. “That’s not what it’s meant for. I won’t get off if you don’t, and you can’t if you’re in pain.”_

_Aaron knows from his study of paraphilias that this is untrue, but that’s an argument for another time. He grasps Spencer’s face and stills him, looking him in the eye and letting him see the truth of his next statement, his real reason._

_“I want you to be a part of me,” he begs, and it is begging. Begging for this being to favor him, begging this hesitant god to shed his fear, to connect the way they both want to, to let them **be.** “I want to give myself… in a new way.” The ‘for you’ is implied, hanging between their parted lips like a coil of shared smoke._

_Spencer gulps, eyes dark and glassy in the dim light. Then his entire shape changes – a subtle shift from lust to something deeper, more primordial. He licks his lips – hungry for this offering to his id – and he responds in kind, wordlessly, nodding his head in a restless ‘yes’ and curling into Aaron as closely as he can without changing forms and crawling inside him. His lips rasp and suck and haunt as they bruise their way over Aaron’s lips, down his chin, his throat…_

_“Aaron…” he sobs once and then stops talking, clutching and kissing where his words would inevitably fail him. And that’s all the ‘yes’ Aaron needs._

Now he remembers that the drive behind all of this is to give, and to receive. Not to take. There’s a moment after that. Silent, floating, as if submerged below the surface and looking at the sky through warped lenses, and then you realize that your eyes are designed for water, that you are suddenly seeing the world as you were always meant to. And his body gives in during this quiet revelation. It must be something you can feel because Spencer’s expression changes, the worry dims and the hunger breaks the surface instead. Aaron’s cock jerks between their bodies where it had wilted from pain, and he takes a breath, shifts under Spencer’s weight - _into_ his weight – and closer to this latent itch that he thinks he can finally put into words.

We are born wanting. Created whole, within another, and then ripped apart when our reality begins to exist divided, separated by our forms, searching for that lost completeness again. Adam’s stolen rib, the division of sea from sky… we spend our lives looking for our split-apart, the secret sliver of self that mends our fracture and brings our lives into focus. It’s a romantic notion Aaron’s never given much time to, but he can’t deny that the basic dissatisfaction underlying the myth, the unconscious itch of it has been with him all his life. It was there when he reached out to Dan, when he hoped with Haley, when he held Jack for the first time. And it has been circling around Spencer since the moment they met in that coffee shop. He’s still searching for his missing piece. It upsets his sense of autonomy that the ‘fix’ for himself may exist in another; he doesn’t like the idea that his fate is out of his hands, or that a simple twist of it could ensure that he’d be searching in vain forever. But the way he _feels_ about Spencer – the fear of losing him, of being insufficient, and the awe at being seen in a new way – trumps his reason, and makes him reach for this like rain to the ocean, seeking to return to the source. 

Maybe Spencer is the key to him, his fabled split-apart. 

He shifts again as Spencer watches this unfold across him silently. The movement allows Spencer to slide just a fraction deeper, pinging Aaron’s dick and making moan softly. Spencer’s breath stutters, and Aaron opens his eyes to look up into the enraptured face looming over him. Aaron lifts a hand to drift up and curl possessively into Spencer’s hair, pulling it away so he can see everything about the face he loves, and he just whispers Spencer’s name. Then Spencer’s mouth is on his, pulling that whisper into him and curling his body like a protective shell around them both. And he begins to move. Aaron sinks under it, into it with a sigh so deep it seems endless. His hands spread wide over rolling muscles and sharp edges, skin heated from effort and a collective, cellular attempt to _reach_ without an understanding of how or why. Spencer is _in_ him, and also without, mouth consuming, arms clutching, fingers tangled in Aaron’s hair. He’s everywhere – a universe expanding as he pulls Aaron in – and it feels like he might actually succeed in claiming Aaron back into his body, safely under his skin again.

Somewhere along the way, Aaron comes. He can feel it between them. But it’s beside the point. This feeling – wholeness, existential joy… words diminish it – keeps going and going. He lets go even further, arches into Spencer’s movements and tries to make them one, flowing line; a beautiful, sinuous curve from one of Spencer’s drawings. For the first time, it isn’t one or the other – they are both strange, feeling beings caught together in a helix of mutual awe. Spencer’s fingers in Aaron’s hair pull almost painfully as he makes a choked, stunned noise. Aaron looks up into his blown-out expression and suddenly finds himself close to tears. Spencer looks at him the way he has when he sketches. The adoration can’t be hidden. And Aaron gives himself up, letting Spencer into that final inch – the one terrified of the world, his father, and the violence he fights to keep at bay. He curls and claws and clasps around Spencer, wanting to crawl inside him and stay there forever. _This is me. All of me. Take it all, please…_

It's never been like this. Sex with Haley was always tidy, her passion compelling but finite. He loved being with her when they were young, and as they grew older, he was with her because he loved her, their years together filling in the hole left when the passion ebbed. And then when she became obsessed with having a child, sex became a job. With the few lovers he’s had before and since his marriage, nothing has convinced him that he was missing out on anything. But _this_ … This transformative passion that lifts you above the animalistic clash of bodies, the mammalian drive to fuck, to release… he didn’t know this existed. They are lost in each other, blended in symbiosis, and together they have created something new. Something is emerging…

Spencer seizes, making a sound that’s caught between a moan and a roar of disbelief. He clutches Aaron close, eyes all pupil and riveted to Aaron in shock as he comes in a long pull that vivifies every inch of him. He gasps, open-mouthed, and Aaron grasps his face and draws him down, leads him through it until Spencer is stuttered and choking against Aaron’s shoulder. He hushes him, broad hands circling Spencer’s back, too exposed to say a damned thing. He feels like he might always walk around like a raw nerve after this. 

_This is different. Now we both know… this is different._

Spencer pulls back to look at him, slips free, but doesn’t do a thing about the wonder that’s all over him now. There’s no mask – this is Spencer down to his marrow, and Aaron’s certain he’d recognize this in any face he wore.

“I…” he chokes, and then seems to be at a loss. Though every molecule of him is screaming ‘I LOVE YOU’ from his fluid lines pressed against Aaron, to his fingers absently tracing the shapes he’s drawn so many times.

“I know,” Aaron whispers quickly. “This… you…” He feels lost in the insufficiency of language too. “It makes me stronger. I didn’t know… _This_ is what I wanted for… for much too long.”

Spencer stares and then makes a wet noise deep in his throat that breaks Aaron a little, so he pulls him close and tries to find that sensation of blending once again. His god has descended, touched him, made the mysteries real, and suddenly he understands what it truly means _to believe_ in something.

\----

Things change after that in ways Aaron can’t anticipate. The obvious one is that they spend even more time together, which isn’t tenable for long. Aaron is lost in this thing between them, sinking deeper every minute, every hour, each passing week. He doesn’t see the silent criticism on the faces of his team, who used to be his family, if not in name. And he doesn’t see the issue in the very vocal criticism of his former sister-in-law, and the subtle withdrawing of Jack. It’s not until Jessica takes a different tact, cornering him in his laundry room on a rare weekend he’s home and not across town taking another hit from his newest addiction. She’s helping him fold, banal task and an absence of yelling lulling him into a vulnerable state at her side.

“She’s obviously important to you,” Jessica starts quietly and without warning, matching socks with blistering speed. “I don’t understand why you’re hiding her.”

Aaron’s eyes flash to Jessica, who turns, cheeks coloring as her eyes flick around the room. Anywhere but him. Then he thinks, _‘Did she imagine someday we’d be a family? For real?’_ He sucks back the sting of his blindness, how he’s used her kindness and never thought twice about it. He can’t say anything. He tries but it doesn’t happen. He chokes and swallows hard to get control over it.

Jessica sighs and looks to the box of soap sitting placidly on a shelf above the washer. “You’re hurting Jack. Do you even see that?”

“Hurting Jack? How?” Aaron’s guts throb painfully. Then Jessica’s gaze turns back to him with a no-bullshit stare that’s an exact echo of Haley’s.

“He knows there’s someone. You’re never around, and he knows there’s someone – just like we all do – and you won’t tell him about it. He looks to you. You’re his best friend, and you are keeping this from him. Imagine being a kid on the cusp of adolescence and being rejected like that by your hero…”

And Aaron gasps in pain for real this time, hip sagging against the dryer. “It’s not… I didn’t mean to…”

“It’s not like you haven’t dated since Haley died. He’ll understand, Aaron. And if she’s as important as she seems to be-”

He needs to clear this up before it gets away on him.

“Jessica,” he interrupts firmly, shoring himself up. “She’s a ‘he’.”

He’s surprised that it didn’t take more to say it, just three small words. Jessica, to her credit, doesn’t react. She just blinks, and considers how to respond. It takes her a while.

“Have you… have you always…”

He shakes his head, feeling his face heat. “No, never before. Even now… I don’t find myself appreciating strange men wherever I go. It’s just him, just Spencer. It’s… difficult to explain.”

He waits as Jessica absorbs that. Then he fills in the silence with her imagined judgment. “You know I loved Haley, Jess. You _know_ I did, don’t you?”

Jessica sighs again, a frown settling over her. “I know you loved her. Even past the point of good sense.” Aaron arches an eyebrow, and Jessica gives him a knowing look that she used to use on her sister when they fought. “She was disappointed – in life, in whatever – and she took it out on you, and you let her. As if everything just _happened_ to her and she had no say in any of it. I always hated that about her. Everything came to her too easily and she never learned the value of fighting for shit. Pretty girls have no survival skills at all.”

“You’re pretty,” Aaron murmurs, but Jessica waves it away. The rivalry between sisters is something he’s never understood.

“I’m a _fighter_ ,” she clarifies. “If I were Haley, I would’ve fought with you about where we were heading rather than sitting back and waiting for the ship to right itself. I told her so more than once. And who knows – maybe she listened. She got that ‘we need a baby’ bit between her teeth and ran with it…”

Aaron just stares at Jessica. He had no clue she felt any of this during his marriage. He also actively tries not to think about the downslope of his relationship with Haley; since she died, he’s only allowed the good stuff to exist.

“Aaron,” Jessica tries again gently. “Just admit it to me: you loved her, but in the end, you didn’t _like_ her very much.”

He feels his lips tighten – he won’t say that. But it’s true. She was a beautiful woman, a wonderful mother, a woman who first inspired him to be more than he was, but by the time Jack came along they were roommates, politely weaving around each other to form a life without too much turbulence. He didn’t want her, he didn’t need her, he just found her… comforting to return to, even if she hated who he’d become.

Jessica makes a frustrated noise at him. “She’s been gone for years and you still can’t find the courage to be angry with her. She was a _person_ , Aaron, not a goddess. Take her off the damned pedestal already.”

Is that what he did? Is that what he’s still doing? Doesn’t he see Spencer that way?

“You changed and she hated that, because she didn’t. Or couldn’t. But that’s what people do: they change. I thought, maybe she’d harangue you too much and you’d throw in the towel one day. Wander off and find someone who wanted you for you. But then she got pregnant and my first thought was ‘Aaron’s stuck for life now’. Isn’t that terrible? I’ve felt guilty about that for years. You know I can’t imagine my life without Jacky Boy in it, but in the beginning…”

“It’s okay,” he sooths. “I understand what you mean, Jess. Though I had no idea about any of this until right now.” They fall silent and it gets awkward. He doesn’t know which problematic subject to tackle first. “Umm, Jess? Did you… did you ever think we’d…”

His hand gestures between them as he stares at her sheepishly. He never once considered it himself; she was always a sister to him, right from the start. Jessica’s eyes go wide.

“No, not really. I, umm, thought that if I reached forty-five without someone, and you were still single too, that maybe we’d consider it. For security, or just because we’re sorta already a family. Something like that.”

“Oh.”

“But, uh…” Jessica stops whatever she was going to say, and the lines around her eyes soften. “Does he see you, Aaron? This guy… does he want you for you?”

“Yes,” Aaron breathes. It’s instinct more than an answer. It’s magnetic poles snapping together. It’s bird mumuration, it’s a star collapsing into supernova and consuming its surrounding planets. “And it’s so much more than that.”

And now the flush of his cheeks spreads to hers. She looks away, back to the laundry. “Then you need to do something about it.”

“Do… what?”

“Aaron,” she flicks a towel hard enough to make a snap in the air. “Tell. Your. Son.”

Aaron suddenly feels queasy.

“It’s not like it was when we were growing up, you know,” she says.

Aaron looks up and finds Jessica’s sympathy has returned. She shrugs at him. “Jack probably already has friends with two dads or two moms. Maybe he already knows kids who are struggling with their own identity.”

“He’s eleven, Jess.”

“They grow up faster now. And he’s intuitive. Do you really think he won’t put it together on his own eventually? Is that how you want him to find out?”

“No,” he mumbles, stomach tightening again. “But Spencer has… issues.”

“Issues?”

“He’s anxious. A bit of an agoraphobic.” It’s not the truth, but it’s close.

“Well, you work on him next,” Jessica says matter-of-factly, tossing the folded towels back into the laundry basket. “One problem at a time. Jack’s gonna be a cinch though. I’m, like, ninety-eight percent sure of it. He’ll just be happy that he hasn’t disappointed you somehow.”

“He could never disappoint me.” That’s instinct too.

“Well, I think you’ll find that sentiment goes both ways. For now. So talk to him.”

“Okay.”

Jessica huffs, like she’s done an onerous job, and lifts the basket to tackle her next task. Aaron reaches for her and stops her with a hand on her arm. She looks at him in surprise, and he only now realizes that he rarely touches people.

“Jess,” he murmurs, afraid of his thoughts. “What if Spencer doesn’t want to meet Jack?”

Jessica takes a breath and then lets it out slowly, placing the laundry basket down. “I dunno, Aaron. You have to decide how to deal with that when and if it happens. But the one thing that will never change about you is that _you_ are Jack’s Dad. I don’t think it’s appropriate for anyone to ask you to forget that.”

Aaron nods too much and looks away, uncomfortable with the creeping power that’s accompanied this thought in his mind. It won’t happen, it can’t. Not after everything they’ve experienced together. He’s just being a SSAC about this: trying to foresee every possible outcome. Spencer’s a part of him now. It’s love – it’s different.

He doesn’t realize that Jessica is hugging him until much later, and he has no idea how long it lasts, but he’s glad to have her arms around him.

\---- 

Aaron is on a cloud. He’s rarely felt _this_ energized at the end of a case. It wasn’t just a resolution, it was an emphatic win. Everyone’s in on the high of it as he looks around the jet on the flight home. And he’s smiling, which, according to Rossi is so infrequent that he thinks Vegas bookies are losing a bundle at its sudden appearance. Aaron murmurs that he smiles, and he does, just usually not for an audience. Just for Spencer and Jack. And maybe that’s why he can’t stop now, because they were both a part of this success.

After the laundry room conversation with Jessica, it took Aaron almost four more weeks to work up the nerve to face his son. He takes Jack to an arcade that they are probably both too old for now, and they gorge themselves on hot dogs, popcorn, and a ridiculous amount of rigged games until they are lying in a ball pit with other sugar-infused kids bouncing around them, exhausted and giggly and with nothing more pressing than to just hang out together. A voice inside Aaron tells him it’s been too long since they’ve done this. Jack is telling Aaron every little detail from school – everything he’s missed out on while secluded away with Spencer – and when he takes a moment between stories, Aaron dives in, not giving his guts a chance to sour the moment.

“Listen, buddy, there’s something we need to talk about.”

Jack rolls to face him in the quicksand of plastic balls. His smile is gone and a look of serious concentration has replaced it. When did he become such a serious kid?

“I haven’t been around much lately, and that’s gonna change because I miss doing things with you, ya know? Things like this.”

Jack nods, waits.

“But there’s a reason why I haven’t been around…”

“You’re dating someone, right?” Jack asks matter-of-factly. Aaron blinks and stutters a little. Across the ball pit, a kid leaps with a whoop and sprays plastic balls all over everyone. There’s a canonballer in every group…

“Umm, yeah. A-and that’s the only reason I’ve been gone. It’s nothing to do with you, Jack. But I see now I have to do better about sharing my time around. Everyone needs to know how important they are to me.”

Jack takes a moment with that. “Is she nice? Do you love her?”

And Aaron feels like he’s ill-equipped to do this explanation justice. “Well, see, there’s another reason why I’ve kept this to myself for so long. Jack, the person I’m seeing is a man, not a woman.”

Jack sits up, balls rolling down him like he’s an erupting volcano. He thinks this over for a full minute as well, tiny wrinkles creasing his forehead. “So… you’re gay?”

“Uh, well, in this instance, yes, I suppose I am.” Aaron’s mouth dries up completely.

“You’ve been gay all long? Did Mommy know?” Jack looks confused. Aaron sits up as well and shuffles closer.

“Jack, I loved Mommy. I wasn’t pretending. I’ve never felt anything for another man until I met Spencer. It’s hard to understand, I’m sure. It’s hard _for me_ to understand it sometimes…”

“This is weird, Dad.”

Aaron sighs, deflating into the circus of rolling balls a little more. “I know it is, buddy. I’ve been worried about telling you because of how weird it is. I want you to understand, because… this is important to me, but I get it if you aren’t comfortable about it. You’re not a boy anymore and you have the right to your own opinions about things in this family. Do you hear me?” He reaches for Jack and cups his face to draw his attention in. “You can tell me anything you want. Even if you’re angry or jealous. We can work through that stuff together, like a team.”

“Like… like your team at work?” Jack asks hesitantly. He’s always idolized what Aaron does for a living. Aaron offers a small smile.

“Yeah, but we’re our own team. Team Hotchner. The home team.”

Jack gives him a shy smile back as his cheeks pink up with pride. “Okay,” he murmurs, and Aaron ruffles his hair until Jack complains and wrestles out of his father’s reach. Then he gets serious again. “There’s a kid in my class with two Moms. They are just like all the other parents. Nothing special about them except they’re ‘vegan’ and won’t let Dylan eat hamburgers.” This would clearly be a dealbreaker for Jack. Then his serious expression disappears and he’s back to being a kid again. “When can I meet him?”

“Meet… meet Spencer? You want to do that?” 

Jack shrugs. “Sure. Maybe he’s cool. I won’t know until I meet him though.”

Well. Aaron sits in the ball pit and fails to grasp how his son just schooled him in understanding.

“Dad… Earth to Dad…” Jack waves his hand in front of Aaron’s face until he focuses again. “I can meet him, right?”

“Y-yes, of course you can. I’d like that very much, buddy.” Aaron wants to grab hold of his son and never let go. But Jack’s a little too old for that now. He settles for grinning at him like he’s just saved the world instead. “You’re the best, Jack. You really, really are. I’m proud to be on your team.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Jack grins and then throws a ball at Aaron’s head that lands with a satisfying ‘plink’. “So, when can I meet him?”

And that is the next piece of the puzzle, which leads Aaron to this case, and the team’s frustration with evidence found that’s encoded, and Aaron suddenly raising the idea of _‘calling in a specialist I know from the NSA’_. Prentiss wears the blandest of poker faces at the mention of Dr. Spencer Reid, and Garcia holds everything in, though Aaron is sure she monitors the Skype call on the sly. Spencer is eager to help, excited by the new challenge of the complex cypher, and more than a little manic about being part of an _active_ case instead of his algorithms and theoretical pursuits. Aaron was worried that he might be wary of a video chat session, but Spencer seems fine with the team seeing his fuzzy, pixelated face streaming across a laptop. Or perhaps he’s too preoccupied to remember his fear. As he babbles on about the history of encryption and the marvel of a code buried within a code that he finds in the suspect’s journals, the team stare back at him in undisguised awe. Rossi shuffles up to Aaron and whispers, “Where did you find this guy? It’s like you took all the parts we look for in a new recruit, and smooshed them together in a big, goofy, excited mess…”

Aaron stands straighter, pride suffusing his frame. “He’s a friend, Dave. I thought he’d be perfect for this though.” Prentiss catches the exchange and gives him a slightly smug look. She brings it up later as they hover over the coffee pot together like birds of prey.

“He’s quite something,” she murmurs without explanation. “And hotter than I expected. You’re just full of surprises, Hotch.”

And now he’s flying home, victory in hand, challenges overcome, and with a powerful surge of hope cresting in his chest that they are _moving towards_ something. Perhaps that emergence he felt before. When he turns the corner down Spencer’s cul-du-sac, he’s excited, aroused, and the most fearlessly in love he’s ever been. He’s shedding his fear of losing. He’s making his hope a reality, one concrete, real-world step at a time. It’s empowering. He can have what he wants; he can _make_ it happen. Spencer isn’t some distant, untouchable deity he’s unworthy of anymore. He’s Aaron’s missing piece, the connection that defies logic. Aaron isn’t idealizing his love this time around. There’s work to be done, lives to be blended – but it’s doable. Of that, he’s certain. He rings Spencer’s doorbell feeling light and young and free.

“Hi!” Spencer throws the door open and meets Aaron with his fantastic grin. Aaron can’t put a stopper in his joy. He steps through and collects Spencer against him for a searching kiss. Spencer moans into his mouth and kicks the door shut again.

“You were so great on this case,” Aaron gasps into his mouth when they come up for air. “You impressed everyone. They think you might not be entirely real. Some sort of elaborate artificial intelligence the government cooked up in a lab somewhere.”

“Umm… thanks, I think?” Spencer husks back before capturing Aaron’s lips again, fingers sliding into Aaron’s hair. “It was sorta fun. Am I allowed to say that being part of a serial killer investigation is fun?”

“In this company, yes,” Aaron chuckles, staggering them back towards the living room. “Honestly, I thought you’d have a problem with the video chat aspect of it…”

“I forgot about it until after I’d done it.” Spencer looks surprised at himself. “It’s strange how quickly I’ve gotten used to wearing this face.”

Aaron smiles as they both sink into the sofa. “Maybe you’re finally accepting it,” he breathes into Spencer’s throat. “Now you can move forward with other changes…”

Aaron is grinning against Spencer’s skin, lightheaded with the possibilities that have suddenly opened up to them in the last seventy-two hours. Spencer pulls back so he can look Aaron in the eye. His expression is concerned.

“What other changes?” he asks.

“Well, like meeting my team in person. They are all eager to see you face-to-face now, if only to dispel the A.I. rumor,” Aaron chuckles, but Spencer’s expression freezes. He presses on. “Maybe we could get you status as a consultant. That way we could call you in when your skills would be an asset. You might even be able to travel with us from time to time. You know, working ‘real’ cases.”

Aaron is excited, but the more he speaks, the more terribly frozen Spencer becomes across from him. Something tells him to stop, to check in and see what’s happening inside that inscrutable mind, but he’s too keyed up, too delighted by the progress he’s already made. Spencer will understand once he sees the plan Aaron’s worked so hard to make a reality. He’ll see once he understands that the end goal is their _connection._

“And now that you have confidence in your face, and you’ve met my team, well… now you can meet Jack.”

And then Aaron’s worlds will merge and he can tangibly grasp the joy that has eluded him his entire life.

“I can’t meet Jack,” Spencer whispers, his frozen expression melting into disbelief.

“What do you mean? Of course you can.”

“No, I _can’t._ And you know why.”

Aaron leans away, face falling along with the stone’s-drop of his heart. “I _don’t_ know why. I’ve already explained the situation to Jack and-”

“You told him about my condition?!?” Spencer rockets off the sofa and glares at Aaron. Aaron gasps and raises his hands.

“No. I told him I was seeing a man. He’s accepted that, and he’s asked to meet you.” Aaron takes a bracing breath. “And your condition has stabilized…”

“That doesn’t mean it’s gone, Aaron. I could change any day. This isn’t even my face!” Spencer starts breathing audibly, color rising to his cheeks. Aaron tries for a soothing tone.

“You haven’t changed in nearly six months-”

“You are _entirely_ too confident in your own rosy reality, Aaron,” Spencer growls, hands gesturing too wildly. “You don’t live with this responsibility – I do. It’s one thing to appear to your team over Skype. I can disappear on them and it won’t affect them unduly. But to place the burden of this secret on _a child?_ It’s a terrible thing to ask. Why would you do that to Jack?”

“Spencer, stop.” Aaron rises, scowling and using every ounce of his professional authority to gain a foothold in this moment. “What is this really about? Because I don’t believe for a second that you’re _terrified_ of potentially confusing my son.”

“You’re asking too much.”

“I’m _asking_ you to be a part of me, my life. That includes Jack.”

“I already am! You know that, you’ve felt that. When we’re together, nothing feels wrong, nothing hurts – it’s the completest I’ve ever felt! Why isn’t that enough?”

“Because it only exists here! It’s not really real!” Aaron bellows, and the echoes bounce at him accusingly. Spencer almost collapses, staggering back oddly, his whole body seeming to shrink. Aaron steps forward, but Spencer backs away, waving off any support he might receive. 

“You could disappear on me,” Aaron gasps, the fear he thought he’d crushed roaring forward and snatching him back with greedy claws. “You could… pull up stakes and leave-”

“I’d never do that.”

“But you could – you have before. You did it to your Mom.” And even Aaron winces as he says it. Spencer looks like he’s been slapped across the face.

“Having connections – responsibilities – to other people grounds you,” Aaron pleads, trying to make amends for his cruelty. The one thing he couldn’t shake from his childhood is knowing how to do the most damage while leaving the fewest marks. “It gives you this… web of support. It’s the foundation _for a life,_ Spencer. That’s what I want. With you. Can’t you see that? You can’t ask me to exclude my son from this. He’s as much a part of me as I want you to be.”

Spencer seems lost, sagging his weight on one hip, arms loose and forgotten at his sides, his face haunted…

Aaron takes advantage of the paralysis and strides forward, clutching Spencer by his arms until his eyes focus on Aaron’s. “You are everything to me,” he chokes, eyes on the verge of betraying him. “You _matter,_ Spencer. Please, please…” Aaron bows his head and takes a deep breath in. “Meet my son. Come live in the light with us.”

Spencer’s throat convulses as tears spill down his cheeks. He’s blinking too much, and Aaron feels him shake under his hands. His mouth falls open and hangs there, like he’s suddenly become a mute.

“I love you. You’re… what I’ve been seeking,” Aaron whispers, broken and desperate. He’s argued enough cases to know how something is going to land. He closes his eyes as his own tears slip free.

“Don’t do this, Aaron,” Spencer chokes, and Aaron’s heart folds in on itself. His arms fall away, he falls away. He’s not enough to compel this magical being. “Don’t throw what we have away. It’s a lot.”

Aaron’s father rises within him, settling into the spot where his heart used to sit. “You are an exercise in irony, you know that?” He glares at Spencer. For the first time since he’s known him, he hates him a little. “Your condition was all about change, and yet you never really have. You’ve spent your life being the frightened boy you were when your family broke apart. You’ve gotten older, but no wiser. All the psych degrees on the planet can’t help you understand it if you refuse to help yourself.”

Spencer’s misery expands into horror. Aaron’s glad – he hopes it hurts like hell.

“You sat here in this room and demanded that I change for you, that I become vulnerable, embrace my fears. And I did – I tried – because you asked me and I would’ve done anything for you, to earn the right to be favored by you.”

“Favored? A-aaron…”

“And I came to see that you were right: my weakness is a gift I’d ignored for too long. It was difficult, but I wouldn’t go back to the half-light version of my life I was living before for anything now. You demanded that I be more, and I tried, and it is good.”

Spencer is quietly sobbing, his face a mess. And Aaron is just cold, cold, cold.

“But you won’t change for me, will you? You’re terrified of the concept. You feared your changing identity, and then when that stopped, you feared its cessation too. You’re afraid to be a real person, responsible to others, dependable, _known_. You’re afraid to risk, and of losing. You’re afraid of loving me in the same reality-altering way that I love you. You’re my missing piece that refuses to take its place.”

Aaron lifts a finger and points it at Spencer’s chest.

“You asked me to save you from your loneliness, but you just dragged me into it with you. You’re exactly the same as you’ve always been. Now it’s just broken up by conjugal visits.”

“Aaron, please… please don’t walk away,” Spencer whimpers, his chest shaking with each word.

“Meet. My. Son.” Aaron demands, shoulders square, glare fierce. But Spencer curls away, hiding his face and his refusal. Aaron staggers back, shocked at how little effect he has. All of this… everything he’s felt… this is all it amounts to?

For the first time in months, he puts on a mask in this place. It’s stoic and capable. It will neatly hide the wrenching defeat of the boy at the heart of him who’s always believed he was never good enough for anyone.

“If you change your mind,” he says quietly, looking at his feet. “You know how to find me.”

He turns and walks to the front door, eager for the night’s gloom and chill to swallow him and blur his sorrow in crosstown traffic and passing headlights. There are hurried steps behind him.

“Aaron… fuck, STOP! Please, _please_ …”

Aaron turns back and looks into the devastation he feels inside. Spencer is clutching a doorframe like it’s the only think holding him upright. He seems insubstantial, like a ghost Aaron dreamed up to forestall his loneliness. Maybe he did…

“Please don’t leave me,” he gasps. “You don’t see… the way I feel… it’s so immense that I can barely breathe around it…”

Suddenly, what was obscure comes into focus. Aaron’s a fool for being blind to it all this time.

“Your fear of losing me isn’t the same thing as loving me,” Aaron says, wondering if Spencer ever really loved him in the first place, or whether he was just _that lonely._ “You’re a slave to it, aren’t you? Because even now, when it threatens to destroy what you want, you still let it hold you down.”

Spencer makes a terrible, wet tearing noise. It sounds irreparable. And Aaron cries. He stands there and lets himself cry like a child; he doesn’t care – what does it matter?

“I hope you find a way out of this house someday, Spencer. I’m gonna pray for that.”

And Aaron turns away, walks through Spencer’s front door for the last time, and slams it home with the tatters of his authority trailing behind him.


	13. Days 4,325 - 5,105

The light changes, from bright to dark to bright, over and over. So many cycles. Everything is circular. The circle, the ellipse – the most perfect, confounding shape in the universe. You can fearlessly dive forward into the darkness, but that parabolic energy eventually brings you back to the beginning again. In math, it’s beautiful, but in life, it is devastating. He is alone again. Alone and unseen, stuck. He lies on the cool tiles of his foyer and watches the light move across the ceiling. From bright to dark, bright to dark…

Circles make everything meaningless. 

 

Time passes. It becomes a blur of work, unignorable obligations, and, shamefully, hidden crying. The hole at the center of him is massive, sucking air and light from everywhere inward with a stinging burn every time he breathes. He has no choice but to endure it. He made this happen. Him, and his inability to change. Each morning he looks at _the same face_ in the mirror, and is forced to recognize the irony Aaron spoke about. But he doesn’t see that he simply reverts back to his previous existence: sheltered, small, anonymous, instead of rising to the challenge of it. He was more of a person with Aaron than at any other point in his life, and now, it seems he’s gone the other way with it. Away from Aaron’s plea to him, and away from all the ways he felt better, bigger, and brighter.

Aaron loved him. He said he _mattered._ It was more than he could’ve hoped for. So, how did he end up alone again? Why is he so afraid all the time?

He spends the first month just trying to cope with everyday things: shopping, emails, feeding himself, and _not_ expecting the phone to ring. The phone is the hardest: its new silence is almost unbearable. After a while he begins leaving it in one room while working in another, and then trying not to have his heart race when he picks it up later hoping to see a missed call or text on the screen. He never misses any calls.

He thinks that no one notices the quicksand he’s sliding into. Who’s around to notice, after all? But he’s wrong.

_Dude, what is UP with you lately?_

Spencer stares at the message on one of his screens like it’s written in a language he doesn’t speak.

_What do you mean, Jeff?_

_You’ve said ninety-seven words to me this month. I COUNTED THEM. What’s doin’? You okay?_

Spencer sighs as his spine gives up on him and he slouches in his chair facing the digital accusation. He’s exhausted, not sleeping much anymore, and he can’t remember if he’s eaten anything today. His face hurts and he doesn’t know why, his body aches constantly, and all he ever wants to do is lie still and stare at nothing. Perhaps the combination of so much apathy makes him uncharacteristically honest.

_I got dumped._

_What? The boyfriend? From the Bureau? I KNEW I hated Feebs for a reason!_

When he told Jeff he was seeing a man, and a Bureau guy to boot, he was impressed with how readily Jeff accepted the sea change. The guy is an absolute deviant, but he’s also good people. Spencer marvels at how confusing the entire world has become to him suddenly.

_We are technically ‘Feebs’ too, Jeff…_

_I’ll kill him. You want me to kill him? No one will ever know. I’m that good._

_Jeff, no._

_Why, man? What was the reason? Did he have Gay Panic? Was screwing around with you something he was trying on for size? Because HELL NO is he getting away with that, Spencer. You’re too good to be played like that._

_I’m not, Jeff. I’m really not._

_Bullshit. You’re a fucking rockstar, man. That asshole shoulda been counting his blessings you took an interest in him at all._

_Stop it. I deserved it. I deserved what happened._

_WHY????_

_He… wanted more. And I was incapable of giving it._

He chokes as he types it, the font blurring before him. It sears him like the moment Aaron slammed the door behind him – the finality of his own total failure to accept happiness. All he had to do was **try** , just reach out and try. But even now, a month later, he can’t find the courage to call Aaron’s number, to ask for a compromise. He can’t face Aaron’s silence over the phone, his disappointment.

_But… Spencer. I thought you were super into this guy._

_I was. I am. I totally fucked up, Jeff._

_Then fix it, man. Use that huge brain and goddamn fix it._

_I can’t. It’s done._

The words on the screen become unreadable and he sucks in a shaky breath. “I’m too broken.” Of course, Jeff doesn’t hear that and just continues typing.

_I have 4 ex-wives, so I’m no authority on fixing shit, but I believe in love, dude. Still. Don’t accept this if it’s something you think you’ll regret for the rest of your life. Sometimes you gotta fight for people._

_He’s worth fighting for, Jeff, but you don’t get it: I’m the problem. Not him._

_Okay, I’m still not getting it. HOW are you the problem?_

_I wouldn’t meet his kid. I just… I couldn’t._

_Oh. Okay._

_There’s no coming back from that. There isn’t, right?_

_No. No parent worth the title would choose someone else before their child. I’m sorry, man. I really am._

_Me too. I feel… subhuman._

And he does, when he allows himself to feel anything at all. How could he be terrified of a kid? Aaron’s son – part Aaron. How bad would it really have been?

“It isn’t Jack. It is you. You would’ve screwed up Aaron’s son eventually. You could barely hang onto the man, let alone a boy…”

Words skitter across his screen again.

_Listen, if you ever want to talk, or drink in silence with another person, I’ve been where you are, Spencer. And I don’t give a rat’s ass if you cry about it._

_Thanks, Jeff, but there’s no crying. It’s been over a month._

But his eyes are sore and his chest is tightening with the suffocation of unwantedness.

_Spencer, I cried for a year when Annie left me. Sometimes I still do when I hear Jeff Buckley on the radio. But I can still kill people with flatware. It doesn’t mean anything other than you miss the hell outta someone._

_Call me if you need to. I mean it, dude._

And Spencer turns away from the screen and flees to another room. Because he can’t even let himself cry in front of a friend’s words on a screen.

 

He starts getting unwanted mail: subscriptions to _Guns and Ammo_ and _Granny On Granny_ that seem impossible to cancel no matter how often he contacts the publishers. He assumes it’s Garcia. When the glossy, high-res editions of furry porn start arriving, he decides that it’s probably better to discover eye-opening things about how to have sex in carefully-sewn animal pelts than to be put on terror watch lists or be flagged to the IRS. He’s never met her but thinks she has a right to her anger, and it shows that Aaron is surrounded by people who care about him. Spencer is envious of that. He sends the _Granny On Granny_ to Jeff and Jeff ships him a fruit basket back with an effusive note of thanks. He’s disgusting – that stuff is pure filth – but at least someone’s getting something out of this.

His house is being watched. A woman with dark hair in a car under the shadow of an elm tree at the edge of the cul-du-sac. He never gets a good look, but he assumes it’s Ms. Prentiss. And the fact that he notices means that she _wants_ him to know she’s there. He has no doubt. It goes on for about three weeks, give or take. One night he stands on the stoop under his security lights and stares at her darkened windows knowing that she’s staring back. He almost trudges over, knocks on the window, and asks if Aaron’s okay. But he doesn’t. He can’t handle the answer either way, and he’s pretty sure Prentiss might choose to hit him instead. He turns and goes back inside, and a week later, she stops coming by. Her absence becomes another thing to regret, because he’s not even worth hating anymore. And Aaron’s connection slips further from him.

 

Three months later, he meets a woman at a restaurant. She’s sitting alone in a corner opposite from him, swearing a blue streak at her phone. He finds himself eavesdropping and discovers she’s late for a deadline and having trouble accessing her dropbox with the spotty wi-fi in the diner. He gets up, shuffles over, and offers to help. He doesn’t think about it and doesn’t expect anything to come of it. The blind act of engagement doesn’t astonish him until long after it’s over.

When her files are safely delivered to her client, she looks at him and grins. It’s a shock. He can’t remember the last time someone smiled at him. She asks him to join her for lunch, as a thank you, and he accepts because it seems like it would take more effort to disappoint her. She’s fun and easy to talk to. Her name is Sam and she’s a graphic designer. She says what she thinks and laughs like a man, and she never once asks him why he doesn’t smile. When they part ways that afternoon, they have each other’s number and he’s not sure how that happened. She calls him a week later and asks him out. He goes because he knows he _should_ , and for no other reason. She’s pretty in a unique way, with her round belly and full hips and hands that never stop moving. He finds that he likes her, likes the way she sees the world and how she describes the beauty in it. It’s very different from his own outlook. At the end of the date, she smiles and tells him she likes him a lot but they are never going on another date. It sort of knocks the wind out of him and he asks what he’s done wrong before he can stop himself.

“Nothing, Spencer,” she tells him, still smiling. “Not a damned thing. But you have no interest in dating me, do you?”

He doesn’t know what to say, so he stays silent. And then she confounds him by laughing about it.

“But I think you’re too weird to let go. Friends instead? Whaddaya say?” Sam holds out her hand to him and he stares at it hard before he folds her fingers into his.

“Friends,” he nods as he stutters the word, a strange _something_ flickering weakly in his chest.

“Good, I’m glad,” she says warmly as she slips her arm through his and they walk into the night. “Relationships are such _a pain_ anyway. But a real friend can rock your world. Don’t you think?”

“Yes,” he gulps awkwardly, understanding every millimeter of what she’s saying, and then shoving it away as he settles against her side. “Friends can mean everything.”

 

Months go by. Sam becomes a fixture in his life for lunches, book store hunts, movies, long Sunday brunches. She introduces him to her friends – more artist types with varying degrees of social awkwardness. He suddenly understands why she latched onto him so quickly even through his lack of affect and incoherent rambles: she collects people _just like him._ Her friends accept him easily, eyeing him like prey at a watering hole until something clicks and their hackles lower. Whether it’s his isolation, his meekness, or the bursts of intellect that usually send folks scrambling, they recognize him. He’s one of them. And without realizing it – without putting too much energy into it – he discovers he has a peer group. It’s bewildering. He finds himself carried off on geocaching adventures, or sneaking dinner into the Georgetown library with a bunch of people who have no idea how to break and enter, and don’t give a damn about being caught. His lack of expression doesn’t faze them. They laugh, and shout, and twirl about, spinning him along with them. He usually just stares, drinking in their freedom, enjoying their color and noise. At night, he goes back to his darkened house and draws them in secret: Sangeeta as a tall lily, Philip as a fat badger in corduroy, Jamie and Frank anchored at either edge of a long piece of newsprint trying to pretend they don’t want to kiss each other. He wants to keep them, and more than just as drawings in a portfolio. He hopes he can.

Somewhere along the way, his smile returns. He supposes it was bound to happen eventually; everyone spends so much time smiling at _him._ They are waiting in line for the new Star Wars movie one day, everyone loudly laying odds on Jamie and Frank (who finally kissed) while Jamie and Frank are _right there_ , red-faced and mortified, and Spencer feels a tug on his jacket. He looks and finds Sam grinning at him through her crazy tangle of auburn hair.

“Watch out, Spence. You’re smiling…” she coos.

“W-what?”

“Don’t worry,” she huddles closer and whispers with a smirk. “I won’t tell anyone. Carry on, Captain Serious, carry on…”

Much later at a house party where everyone gets gloriously drunk on sangria and decides, disastrously, to play Twister, Spencer looks over at Sam and grins like an axe-murderer. He’ll show her: no more Captain Serious…

“What’s _that_ about, dork?” she giggles, too drunk to stop herself. He shuffles closer to her on the sunken couch, avoiding the flailing limbs of her drunk friends on the floor before them.

“You had me figured out from the moment you met me, didn’t you?”

“Yep,” she pops the ‘p’ and then laughs when it launches a fleck of spit onto his crooked tie. “Oops, sorry…”

“Did you even want to go on a date with me?” He’s smiling and he doesn’t know why. He should be upset.

“Nah,” she waves the idea off, so far in their rearview mirrors at this point. “I was just curious to see if your moping was an angle you were playing. You mope pretty, after all.”

“Mope pretty?”

“Jeez, Spence, you’re ridiculously good looking.” Sam rolls her eyes and almost spills her sangria when one of her pals slips under another on the Twister mat and everyone collapses in a heap. Someone yells ‘orgy!’ and Sam immediately starts waving her hands around and threatening people if they begin stripping in her living room. “Undies ON, people!”

“Why would that matter?” Spencer asks, undeterred by the risk of indiscriminate nudity.

“Undies ON,” Sam points at him accusingly, as if he had any other idea in mind. Then she sighs and sags back into the sofa. “Listen, pretty people don’t have a right to be sad. Most of the time, they end up using it to get something while the rest of us… well, we’re _just fucking sad_ with no upside to it. I needed to know IF you were sad, or playing at it, before I took you on as a friend. I have limited friend slots, you know…”

He knows, and they are all weird. Sam collects fractured weirdos like the rich collect antiques, and she handles them with the same reverence. And that’s when it really hits home: _he has friends_. Real ones who live in the real world and seem to like him no matter what’s going on with him, and it’s in no small part because of Sam and her unstoppableness. Sam looks up at him through hazy, blown-out eyes.

“But you were sad. Truly. Like you were just done with everything but your body was too stubborn to lie down and die.” Sam takes a quick breath in. “Hurts my heart to think about that, Spence. You’re too much fun when you aren’t busy planning on being miserable for the rest of your life.”

Spencer just blinks, as his mouth drops open. “No one’s accused me of being fun before…”

“Well, you are,” Sam gusts, looking away to the rest of the guests. “If we can get you over your broken bits, you’ll be brilliant. Maybe we can even get you to fall in love. It’s a massive project though.”

Sam pops up from the couch. Discussion over. But the idea that Spencer is her ‘project’ doesn’t fade when the hangovers kick in. She pushes him to date, though the concept still leaves him numb. After some cajoling, he looks upon it as an exercise, re-learning to use muscles that have atrophied from disinterest. And _trying_ has become his new, private obsession. He wants to prove to himself that he’s not too scared to live. Sam introduces him to a few of her girlfriends and he hits it off with one of them. They go out for a while, enjoying each other’s company for no other reason than relief from the ever-present onslaught of couplehood everywhere they look. And yes, he even gets laid. It’s nice and nothing too serious. They enjoy each other until it’s over, and no one has any regrets when they mutually decide it’s done. Spencer congratulates himself on the lack of drama and the ability to simulate being a capable adult.

“No hysterics,” Sam pats him on the back and smiles at their post-break-up, post-mortem lunch afterwards. “Good. I’d hate to have to choose between you and her. I’m proud of you though.”

“Proud?” Spencer says around a mouthful of lettuce, not fazed at dissecting his failed relationship with Sam.

“Yeah. You put yourself out there. You took a risk. And when it didn’t work out, you were a good guy about it. When I first met you, you’d probably have sooner swallowed your own tongue than go out with someone.”

“I went out with you,” he points out, but Sam waves it off. Then she digs a finger into his side until he almost yelps salad all over the place.

“And you _had FUN!_ ” she enthuses as he chokes and swats at her. “So proud of you, dork.”

“What a relief,” he huffs sarcastically, but it actually _is._ He doesn’t realize it, but Sam has been sneakily conning him into personal growth while he wasn’t looking. He sees it now though. He does something she doesn’t expect: he leans in and kisses her laughing mouth. Just a warm show of gratitude for the thread of hope she offered when he had nothing and didn’t know how to ask for it.

“What was that for?”

“Because you’re the best, Sam. Thanks for letting me occupy one of your friend slots.” He grins. Sam scrunches her nose.

“Well, that just sounds dirty.” 

He laughs it off, but it’s a great day. They sit in the sun and talk about anything that strikes them, as he settles into the idea that… life has random moments of _fucking great_ and it’s an art to recognize them and soak them up. This is one of them, and he feels warm and full and amazed by it. Who knows where he’d be now if Sam hadn’t taught him this. It feels as if he’s turning a corner.

 

Sam never asks who broke his heart, but he’s sure she knows it’s broken. She asks him lots of other things though. When they get to the subject of his family, which he’s been dancing around for almost a year now, she digs in.

“Why don’t you go see your Mom?” she asks one day, and it’s the first time in who knows how long that he’s twitched and panicked, thinking of both Aaron and his condition at the same time. “She’s in Vegas, right? It’s not much of a flight…”

Sam is flipping through comic books at a second-hand store, not seeing his rapid descent into full-blown hysteria.

“I can’t,” he blurts, and she looks up. And then she _looks_.

“Jesus, Spence, what the hell?”

His face hasn’t changed in well over a year but he’s suddenly small and terrified and wants to be invisible again. _I can’t tell her… I can’t… I can’t… look what happened before…_

“Spencer?”

Sam is in front of him staring with those eyes of hers, that way she has of seeing everything you thought you hid so well. Her hands reach out and hold him securely by the shoulders.

“Spencer,” she commands, and he looks at her. “Stop. Whatever you’re doing inside your head – just stop. Don’t go to Vegas – fine. It’s fine. I’m not gonna stand here and demand to know why, or to force you into something that you’re clearly afraid to do, okay? Just… chill.”

He gulps and shakes and does everything he can to stuff all of that fear back down. He thought he’d gotten rid of it somehow, but it turns out he hasn’t. It just hasn’t been set off until now. Shit. He thought he was getting better.

He must say that aloud because Sam asks, “Better than what?”

Spencer opens his eyes and looks at her. She’s so strong, so ready to leap into any friend’s mess with them. But her eyes are scared too, not like his, but she’s scared for him. And he wants to tell her, wants to let her into this mess with him because, maybe, she’s the person who can help dig him out of it. He slides his arms around her and pulls her close, nuzzling down into her shoulder as she huffs in surprise.

“Okay, now you’re freaking me out a little…” she murmurs, but her arms come around him too, stroking him lightly.

“I… I can’t,” he chokes, then he breathes in tremendously and does the best he can. “I can’t go to Vegas because I can’t get on an airplane.”

“Oh. A phobia?” She keeps rubbing circles across his back. “That’s common as hell, man. No need to be ashamed…”

“No. I mean, I can’t fly because… I don’t have any i.d.” It’s sort of true. A portion of the truth.

“But, you drive…” she pulls back and stares at him.

“Yeah, well…” he shrugs. “No license.” He _does_ have a license, but it’s fourteen years old, from out of state, and has a face on it he doesn’t possess anymore. Sam’s eyes widen as he watches. Then she smirks.

“You are such a _bad guy_ ,” she drawls, wiggling her eyebrows as he gets gloriously confused. “Jesus, how long have you been tooling around this town just freewheelin’ it? Man, I can’t go a month without getting a ticket for _something_ …”

“Umm, well…” His face flames and he stares at his shoes. Sam makes a low, weird squeal of some kind and it draws his eyes back to hers.

“OhmygawdIloveyou…” She closes her eyes and bounces around like a child, as he gets panicked again and tries to shush her. “This is so cool…”

“Sam…”

“Quit worrying, man. I’m not gonna throw you a parade or anything… although we could _drive_ to that parade and take the freeway and it would be a FELONY!” She starts bouncing again before she reins it all back in. She raises a finger when he starts whimpering nervously. “BUT, this is totally fixable. You and I can fix this. We could even do it today.”

“W-what?”

“Simple. You take a driver’s test. Ace it and – BAM! Photo i.d.” She says ‘photo i.d.’ like she’s a magic pixie or something. “Then you can have a fresh, brand-spanking-NEW meltdown over why you aren’t going to see your Mom. Because I’m not fooled by this traveling papers-nonsense. No one has a panic attack over that, Spence.”

She eyes him critically – to let him know she SEES him – and then lets the larger problem drop. Because that’s how she motivates him. It annoying how good she is at it.

So, that afternoon, Spencer Reid learns to drive. Or, becomes accredited to drive, and subsequently, to fly domestically. The one thing he told Aaron he hated about his condition was that he could never travel anywhere… He walks out of the District DMV gawking at his terrible license photo. Wow, he really is good looking, even the DMV couldn’t ruin that…

“They always look like that,” Sam sooths. “It’s like they have f-ugly filters on all of their cameras, the bastards… But you have a license! Strike that off the bucket list, right?”

Sam is grinning like a fiend and he’s filled with this manic glee that matches hers, totally out of proportion to the moment. He wraps an arm around her shoulders as they walk to Margot parked in the curb lane.

“But for a while there, you were _dangerous_ , Spencer,” Sam cackles and shuffles into his grip a little, leaving a warm line against his side. He kisses her head because she took his drama and made it manageable in the space of an afternoon. There is so much he needs to learn from her.

 

He texts her from the airport, palms sweating already and he hasn’t even checked his bags yet.

_* I’m going to Vegas. Back in a week. *_

Her message back to him thirty seconds later is just a cacophony of exuberant emojis. And then,

_~ Proud of you, dork. Call me if you need anything, k? ~_

But he’s determined to do this on his own. After all, whether it goes well or disastrously, no one will believe anything his Mom says afterwards. That, too, feels cowardly and fearful, but this condition has made him do uglier things than that.

He walks into the care facility he chose so long ago, and flashes around his new license a little too much, trying to emphatically declare myself as SPENCER REID and defying anyone to doubt him. Of course, there’s one person he can never fool.

“You aren’t my son,” Diana Reid says after a full minute of staring at him from her window seat. The day nurse chides her, telling her how far he’s come to see her. “I know what I’m seeing,” she snaps. “There are no medieval poets lurking or a death’s head whispering he’s Satan. It’s not an illusion. He isn’t Spencer.”

Then she switches her stare away from the nurse and back to him. The lines around her eyes crinkle. “But he can stay if he wants. You seem like a nice young man, and I don’t get any visitors, so…”

The nurse leaves with a weary sigh and the squeak of orthopedic shoes, and Spencer hesitantly takes a seat next to this older, greyer, more fragile version of his mother. She’s staring out the window, like she’s forgotten he’s there, and then she suddenly turns and looks at him the way she used to when she doubted he’d done something she asked him to do.

“So?” she says quietly.

“M-Mom?” He doesn’t know where to start and he can barely breathe around the lump in his throat. He’s missed her so much. This person who is his only real tether to existence.

“Listen, dear boy, I don’t know who you are, but you aren’t my son.” She leans forward and holds his gaze in a kind way he doesn’t expect. “However, if it would comfort you to call me ‘Mom’, that’s a burden I’ll accept.”

He lets out a huge sigh, closing his eyes as a thousand miles of anxiety slowly inches out of him. Then he feels her hand on his, skin dry and paper-thin, fingers long and agile like his, even in this new body he calls home.

“Now, what’s your name?” she murmurs.

“Spencer.” He looks up and refuses to deny it. Diana sits back with a huff.

“And I thought we were going to get along so well…”

“It’s true, Mom. I can prove it. Did you get my letters?”

Spencer hadn’t been completely inert during his relationship with Aaron. He took Aaron’s suggestion to heart – the thing about his handwriting was a clever insight – and he started writing to his Mom weekly. He never told Aaron about it because she never wrote him back. It seemed like another failure.

“I told you want happened to me in them, remember? I had an accident – my face changed.”

Diana Reid blinks rapidly. “I received those letters. They were in my son’s handwriting – I’d know it anywhere. I taught him his letters, made him appreciate the lost art of cursive. How did you…”

“ _I_ wrote them, Mom. And everything I said in them was true. About having to move where no one knew me, about hiding my face from everyone…”

“But… but what was described was… impossible,” Diana whispers and suddenly looks around to see if anyone is listening in. “Magic, even. I never wrote back because I was afraid.”

“Afraid? Mom, why?”

Diana grabs his hand again and holds it much too tightly. “I was afraid my son was like me. I was… scared that people here would somehow find out, and that they’d catch him, bring him here and medicate him until all his specialness faded away. Better to be free and crazy than to be dimmed.”

“Mom,” his voice breaks, and some of Diana’s desperation fades. Her motherliness comes forward as she rubs circles into his skin and hushes him gently. “Mom, are you unhappy here?”

“No, my dear. This is where I belong now. I could never make it on my own. Even on my worst days, I understand that. But it was hard in the beginning, when my son left me.”

“Mom, I had to. I didn’t know what else to do. I was going away to college, and… and I couldn’t leave you alone for more than an hour without something dangerous happening.”

“Oh, don’t worry now,” she pats his hand and smiles. “That’s in the past, and it wasn’t your fault, pretend-Spencer. It wasn’t even _my_ Spencer’s fault. One must learn to let go of old hurts that cannot be mended, after all.”

She beams this odd sort of serenity at him that he can’t decide is real or a symptom of her madness. But it calms him. He wants to make things up to her, but she may have a point: it might be too late. But surely, he can make her ‘now’ more bearable, can’t he? That would be something worth trying, that could be attained. She collects his hand into both of her own and tells him to scooch his chair closer to hers.

“Now tell me more about my son’s letters that you should know nothing about.”

He spends all afternoon telling her about his life over the past decade. She thinks they are marvelous stories and tells him he should be a writer. He sighs and takes what he can get. He comes back the following afternoon, and the one after that. He tells her new things, and retells the things she’s already forgotten. He doesn’t mind. She is a part of who he is, a connection to the boy that was, before the curse changed everything. There’s a hope in the way she talks about ‘her son’ – it’s all potential and promise, a first, excited step on a glorious path of adventure. He remembers that, the way she made him feel special just by reading to him. All of his struggles would fade when she did that, and his anxieties fade now, again, as they trade stories once more. He thinks of Aaron for a moment, skirting the stab of hurt that always comes along with his memory, and begins to understand what he meant about a ‘web of connection’. She is a part of his life that he should have never forgotten.

On the fifth day, he walks into her suite and she perks up and says, “Hello, Spencer.” Not pretend-Spencer. He stops in his tracks and stares at her.

“Who do you see here right now?” he asks hesitantly.

“My son, of course,” she chuckles as if he’s being ridiculous. “You’ve been visiting every afternoon for the last five days.”

“Mom… you _see_ me?”

“Well,” she scoffs and waves a hand around. “You’re not wearing the right face, but, yes, I see you, dear.”

He lands heavily in the chair that’s become his in the past week. Diana leans forward and looks him over critically.

“Are you alright?”

“A little stunned.”

“Oh, well, yes. Imagine my surprise at discovering my child can change his face. I miss your old one, to be honest. I’m biased because I made it and always thought it beautiful. But there’s no denying that _this one_ has remarkable cheekbones…”

He laughs a little manically. “Mom, what changed? How do you know it’s me now?”

She shrugs. “I imagine that part of it is the passing cloud of dementia. Some days I’m more observant than others.” He hates the way she’s so blunt about her state of mind. But perhaps it is kinder to be honest? “However, I think the majority of it is that I knew you before you had a face, Spencer.”

She stares at him and he stares back, glorying in the idea of recognition that moves beyond the senses.

“We lived as one body,” she says quietly. “You are mine. Always. The things that make you my son live beneath your skin. It doesn’t matter what you look like or how you change – I’ll take you as you are. You were gone so long, and I missed you so much. But you’re here now, and we have this time together. It is enough.”

He’s suddenly seven years old again, upset by some passing slight, and she says just the right thing to both soothe him and undo him in the same breath. He launches himself at her, knocking his knees painfully on the linoleum as he crouches next to her chair and hugs her fiercely. He sobs out her name and she hugs him back, all wiry and warm. She laughs a little into his hair, and tugs at it with a thin hand.

“And who could forget that you never learned to comb your hair properly. Honestly, Spencer, there could be a nest of starlings in this mess…”

He spends the rest of the day touching her: hugging her, holding her hand, sharing a window seat in the day room with his arm around her shoulders. It’s his last day before he flies home, but he’s made the choice to come back to her as often as he can. There won’t be many lucid years left and he’s determined to make the most of what has been offered. He tells her his plan and she smiles.

“Thank you, Spencer. And know that if I forget about this, it has made me very happy knowing it today.” It’s bittersweet, but also strangely beautiful. She kisses his cheek, a soft ‘I love you’ in the language every baby is born knowing, and then she moves on. “Is there someone to go home to, Spencer?”

He’s ready to tell her an abbreviated form of the truth: _no, I’m not seeing anyone right now._ But this day has been… he feels so close to her. It doesn’t feel right to _not_ tell her.

“There was someone,” he says quietly.

“Was?”

Spencer nods. “A man.” He wonders if that will upset her or not, then passes that worry by. It’s not as if it matters any more. “He was… very special to me.”

“What happened?” Diana’s hand curls over his wrist and holds it firmly, like she’s taking his pulse. Spencer shrugs and can’t look at her.

“I let him slip away.”

“I see,” she says with calm finality. The residents shuffle around the day room, and Spencer forces himself to watch them until his eyes stop stinging. Should it still hurt so much after all this time? He wishes he could ask someone about that. “You know, I was desperately in love once,” Diana begins suddenly.

Spencer finally looks at her. “Ya, I know. Dad.”

“Who?”

“William Reid.”

Diana looks confused for a moment and then everything clears up with a shake of her head and a soft laugh. “William? Oh my, no, William wasn’t my great love. He was the one I decided would make a suitable father. I guess I was wrong about that…”

“Wait, if it wasn’t Dad, then who?”

“He was a boy I met in college. You never met him, though he did hang around after I married William for some tortured reason I never quite got out of him. He was everything to me, Spencer. Simply… the whole world.” Diana’s voice drifts off and the corners of her mouth curl. But Spencer still doesn’t understand.

“Mom, if you loved him so much-”

“He didn’t want children, Spencer.” She looks him in the eye. “It was unbearable, unthinkable. We belonged to each other in every other way but… he told me he’d never give me a child. It tore me apart to leave him – I was never quite the same again. But people are imperfect, and we love imperfectly too. He could’ve asked so many things of me and I would’ve relented, but not that. If I had made a different choice, and stayed with him, well… then I would’ve never met the love of my life, now would I?”

Now Spencer is really confused. “Mom, you said-”

Diana cups his face. “ _You_ are the love of my life, Spencer. Sometimes we don’t understand what we’re for until long after we’ve made our choices. I was made to have you, and that’s why you are my love. If Allister had wanted children, then I’d be telling this story to a different version of you. I _wish_ that could’ve happened – I’ll wish that until I end – but I can’t regret leaving him behind when you are in front of me. Even if William was… lamentable.”

“Mom…” he whispers, his voice uneven and his face hurting with how hard he’s trying to keep it together.

“This man you let slip away,” she murmurs. “Is there any hope?”

Spencer closes his eyes and shakes his head in his mother’s hand, multiplying prime numbers in his mind to stay focused.

“Oh, well…” She pauses. “Do you regret it?”

Spencer’s eyes flick open. “No, never. I… Mom, he got so close. He… he became a part of me. How do I…” He swallows and stares at her, begging for some sort of wisdom that has eluded him. “How do I _forget_ that?”

“You don’t,” she says as if it’s obvious. “Why would you want to forget him?”

“Because it hurts. It hurts so much going on alone.”

“Child, you won’t be alone forever,” she smiles gently and strokes his cheeks. “Anyone who can love that intensely, will love again one day. You don’t forget how.”

“But I don’t _want_ to love another that way,” he says petulantly. “I want to love _him_. And I can’t. It’s impossible. Like Allister was.”

“You may not want to love now, but you will again, eventually. And when you find that person, this beautiful love you experienced with this fellow – what’s his name?”

“Aaron.”

“This love you shared with Aaron will be with you, helping you to love another with all the things it taught you. It won’t be the same – every love is different – but it could be just as beautiful, just as intense in its own way. And Aaron will be with you, always. So, _feel_ the hurt, Spencer. Move through it. Let Aaron exist alongside you. He’s part of your story. Maybe, he’s part of what you were made for. Only time will tell.”

He sighs, fighting to ignore the flashes of memory in his head: Aaron looking confused under an umbrella in the rain, his quiet smile, him stretched out in sleep looking impossible and perfect as Spencer’s fingers blend the charcoal lines on the paper. How will any of this ever feel like anything other than loss? “I don’t know, Mom…”

Diana watches the patients in the day room wander around, a distracted smile on her face. Spencer thinks that he might have lost her again – she fades in and out of reality that quickly. Her hand drops from his face and he curls it in his palm, dwarfing it, and just tells himself to enjoy what this trip has offered him: he has his mother again. His ‘trying’ bore fruit, even if it wasn’t exactly how he pictured it. His broken heart can wait.

Suddenly, Diana turns to him, the same casual smile across her lips. “Well, there was this song that was popular when I was young that said, ‘if you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with’…”

“Mom!” Spencer feels his eyebrows try to launch off his face. Diana chuckles, shaking her whole body next to his.

“Yes, it was just a shameless plug for casual sex, but one can see their point as well…”

“I’m not having this conversation with you, Mom,” he grumbles, trying not to join in with her giggling. People watch them together, patients and staff alike, their gazes curious or envious or relieved. Spencer wonders how Diana was seen before he arrived. Did anyone see her at all? Diana’s laughter peters out, but her smile stays firmly in place; he’s proud of that.

“Nothing’s ever over, Spencer,” she whispers. He looks at her, eyebrows squiggled in confusion. “I loved you so much, my boy, and then I lost you. I thought I’d never be complete again. But here you are now…”

Her eyes get glassy but her smile remains. He swallows hard and she pats his cheek once more. “Nothing’s ever over,” she says again. “Maybe that could be a comfort to you.”

And though he’s unsure what she thinks that means for him, he _is_ comforted by it.

 

It takes him almost a year and a half to realize he loves Sam. And it’s a sneaky kind of love. It’s worn in and comfortable, sunlit and content. He doesn’t recognize it until he’s out on yet another first date with someone who’s both dull and too much all at the same time, and he’s scanning the restaurant for something to distract him when his mind burps _I’d rather be hanging out with Sam…_ Then he’s fully alert and blinking, and his date across the table perks up because she mistakenly believes she’s finally done something that’s caught his attention. He suffers through dinner, bids his date a rushed good night that would depress any career singleton, and then drives over to Sam’s place.

“Hey,” she says breezily when she answers the door in her pjs, looking perplexed but happy to see him nonetheless. Her gaze sweeps over his outfit and then she smirks. “Bad date?”

“Awful, but not the point,” he mumbles as he pushes past her into her place. She doesn’t remark on it, they’ve been doing that to each other almost since they met. “I figured something out tonight.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?” she snarks and beckons him into the living room casually.

“I think I love you.” Even he is a little taken aback by the bluntness. Sam just turns and stares at him like he’s lost his mind. “I mean it.”

“Like, _love_ love?” Her face creases up like this is going to be a problem.

He nods his head. “Yeah. I think so.” And then Sam just stares at her dinosaur slippers. 

He’s more than a little amazed that he’s come to this point. He and Sam have been almost inseparable since they met, and sure, he’s loved her for that, but _love?_ There was a time not long since passed where he was convinced that he’d never love anyone, not the way he wanted to anyway. And, honestly, he’s scared by this. There are still large parts of him under lock and key over Aaron that he’s chosen to never revisit. Despite his mother’s advice, Spencer doesn’t believe that he can let those parts of him loose to live alongside a new love. But when he thinks about Sam… well, he wants _to try_ , and that’s what matters, isn’t it?

“So, ummm… what do you think?” Spencer stutters, heart rabbiting around, but still feeling strangely light about everything.

Sam sighs, squares her shoulders and looks at him hard for a full minute. “I think that’s quite a thing to say.”

“You… you don’t feel that way…” he murmurs, heart sagging, but still staring at her intently.

“No, that’s not it. You know I love you, Spence,” she clarifies, sounding just like she does every day, like they are talking about cartoons or books or traffic snarls. “And I could probably fall _in love_ with you quite easily. But… is that really what we’re meant to be?”

“I… I don’t understand the question.”

“Well, you can love someone deeply and never kiss them, watch them have kids with other people, never do anything more than hold hands.” Sam pauses and then proceeds quietly, as if she’s not sure of herself, which almost never happens. “And you can also love someone so passionately that it destroys the love.”

He feels like she’s asking a question. It feels like it’s about Aaron, even though she doesn’t know about him.

“Intimacy heals, Spencer. It’s a kind of love that never gets tired of giving because it gets recharged even as it leaves you. Sex can be the opposite. It can narrow you, make you scared and selfish. It brings you so high, and then smashes you down like an unwanted toy.”

Sam steps forward and laces her fingers together, like she doesn’t trust them as she usually would in conversation.

“I love you, Spence. Really love you. But… I’m afraid to go where you want this to go because… I think you’re confusing intimacy for something else. And I don’t believe that you’ve gotten past the person who broke you. Whoever she was, I don’t think I’ll ever measure up to that, and if you ask me to be with you, I’ve gotta have a feeling that I have an outside chance at meaning that much to you.”

“You _do_ , Sam. You already mean the world to me.”

“Then why risk that?” she asks in a maddening, quiet, reasonable way. “Why throw sex into the middle of all that and possibly ruin everything? Isn’t what we’ve made together enough?”

Spencer sighs, rubbing his forehead hard with his fingers. “It is, and it isn’t.” Then he huffs loudly. “Jeez, Sam, don’t you _miss_ sex?”

“Who says I’m not having any?”

He feels his eyebrows pop. “Oh, uh… sorry, I… you just… oh man, how did I miss the fact you were dating?”

“I’m not dating,” she rolls her eyes at him. “I wouldn’t keep that from you. Sometimes I go out and… pick up. It’s no big deal. Sometimes I just take care of it. I’m not immune to lust, you idiot.”

“Well… wouldn’t that be better… with a friend you love? You know, instead of with some jerk from a bar?”

“Spencer,” she sighs. “ _You_ were some jerk from a bar when we met, remember?”

“Stop being reductive, Sam. You know what I’m saying.”

“Yes, I do. But what you’re suggesting – friends who love each other who _also_ try for benefits – that ISN’T what you’re asking for. You’re asking for everything that other woman gave you – all the passion and heartache and need – but in a safer version. Because you think it won’t hurt with me.”

Spencer staggers back a step. It feels like she’s stripped him bare in four sentences.

“Maybe that’s fine for you, Spencer. But have you considered how that might hurt _me?_ ”

“H-hurt you? I’d never, never hurt you, Sammy…”

“I don’t want to be anyone’s safe choice,” she chokes quietly and shakes it off. And then Spencer is marching across the living room and wrapping her up against his chest, because he’s just done the thing he promised he wouldn’t do.

“Sammy,” he whispers into her hair. “That person you’re worried about is long gone. I haven’t forgotten – you’re right about that – but it’s over. I don’t want to spend my days alone when… there’s this fantastic person right next to me. Why shouldn’t we give ourselves permission to love each other? Just because we may have loved others more, or differently, in the past?”

“I dunno, Spence. I dunno,” Sam murmurs into his chest, but they let each rock the other as they ponder their futures.

“Well, will you think about it at least?” he gulps, and she looks up at him, cupping his jaw and giving him the smile that’s always made him feel better, no matter what.

“Yeah, okay. I’ll think about it.” And with that, they settle on an unspoken agreement: _when Sam is ready._

 

They continue on as they always have. Maybe Spencer catches Sam staring at him more often, but when he asks about it, she jokes it away or makes a comment about his unruly hair. He decides he’s fine with waiting, realizing that he has neither the dreaded clock of his condition ticking down to contend with nor the panic of losing her if he doesn’t up the intimacy ante. He stops casually dating and finds he’s not missing much of anything other than the possibility of sex, and he doesn’t miss that much either. This shocks the hell out of him. It was his main motivator for a decade, his treatment against crippling loneliness, and now? Well, now he has movie nights curled with Sam on her couch, brunches on cold, winter Sundays with Sam’s (and now his) assortment of oddball friends, house parties, and concerts, and long days spent at book fairs or in the Smithsonian… He isn’t missing a damned thing.

A month after his declaration, Sam strokes his hair out of his face absently at a dinner party in front of everyone. A few weeks later, she has a small show at a local gallery, and introduces him around. She holds his hand shyly with each new person they meet. He watches her laugh from across the room, and as she scans the crowd, her eyes land on his, and her grins changes to one he’s never received before. That evening, giddy from the unexpected success of a half-sold show and too much pinot grigio, they stumble into her place, giggly and flushed, and it just happens. He strips her from her dress, her hands moving and mumbling about the parts of herself she’d rather not reveal – she’s too short, too round, chunky in the wrong places – but this unexpected shyness just makes him want her more. She’s beautiful, he tells her. _Her_ , not just her body, and he loves _her._ It’s the truth, and it’s also easy and comfortable. He lays her down and takes his time. She gets emboldened by his affection and lets her personality out – the Sam he knows very well snarking and laughing and being gloriously inappropriate as they roll together. He enjoys her and doesn’t think of anyone else – no ghosts hang over either of them when they slip apart, sated and happy afterwards. He doesn’t ask about spending the night, he just does it, and when they wake the next day they are still the same friends who love each other. But now they’ve seen each other’s bits. Sam makes it clear that they still aren’t dating, but sex is on the table. Spencer is satisfied – he feels like he’s moving towards something that has the potential for healing.

And time passes this way. They are never a regular ‘thing’, but they are a daily presence in each other’s lives, and their circle of friends come to eye them knowingly with a smugness that seems to scream _‘well, it’s about time’_. Frank and Jamie enjoy their turn at mocking them mercilessly. 

The moment comes when they tell each other the things you don’t tell friends. Only someone you trust with your soul is a person you can tell about the guy in college who went too far one night and that’s why you can’t be pinned down in bed, or that a girl you crushed on in high school came onto you just to lure you to the football field where the school’s team waited to strip you and tie you to a goal post for the night. They tell each other everything. Well, Spencer assumes that Sam does. He tells her everything but the two most important things about himself: his condition and Aaron. And it hurts him to hold these things back. He wants Sam all the way in, like Aaron was. He’d kill to have that intimacy once more, but both of these secrets will hurt Sammy, and he promised he’d never do that. He tells himself that his face hasn’t changed in almost two years. Whatever Aaron did to stop that appears to be permanent. Though the scars of it remain with him, it’s not something he has to worry about going forward. Only when he looks back. The same can be said about Aaron. There’s a lot to unpack about that experience – what it gave him, how he’s been changed by it – but staring back into his failure there requires more strength than he has. And why should he dwell on the misery he can’t change when he can have joy, here and now, with Sam? What good does it do anyone to revisit what’s gone?

But the thing about loving a friend is that they see you with a more critical gaze, and Sam, who was respectful of his silence over his ‘ex’ when they were just buddies, refuses to let him evade her now that they are more.

“You know, you never say her name,” she murmurs late one night, rolling against him, body still hot from their antics.

“Whose name?”

“Don’t do that,” she warns as she leaves a gentle kiss on his collarbone to ease her tone. “You’ll never get past her if you still let her have that sort of power.”

He wiggles so that he can look at her in the twilight. She’s messy and red-faced and all rounded ellipses piled on top of one another. She’s imperfectly stunning. Absolutely. “Some people just have power over you, whether they are present or not. _You_ have that kind of power, you know. No matter where you are, you’re in my head.”

“And so is she. Even after years.”

He sighs. “Please, Sammy. It was painful enough. Don’t make me go back and relive it. What matters now is that _you_ are here.” He cups her cheek, thumb stroking the freckles he can’t see, but knows are there. “I love you. What we have makes me happy. You _feel_ that, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I do,” she says quietly, nuzzling into his grip in a way that trips up his heart a little. She doesn’t say anything else, but the vacuum of her words speaks loudly.

_You asked me to fall, and I’m here. Where are you?_

He waits for her to believe him. Because he loves her, truly. As surely as he loved that first girl at sixteen. As surely as he loved Aaron. Those loves aren’t the same, but it’s all _love_ , and it would break him open all over again to lose her over a persistence of memory. Aaron is gone. He doesn’t know if he’s even in D.C. anymore. Spencer’s never tried looking him up – from the day they split, he vowed never to go down that rabbit hole again. It was the only way to give either of them a semblance of peace. But there are things he wishes he could’ve told Aaron, the most important being _‘you were right, and I’m sorry – you’ll never know how much’_. He knows he could’ve loved Aaron better, but sadly, he had to lose him, and then learn how to love Sam in order to figure that out. So, he waits for Sam to understand this in that uncanny way she has of reading what he’s not saying, and maybe it’s a little bit cowardly because it allows him to avoid discussing Aaron entirely. He won’t pretend that he’s got this figured out, but he’s trying because Sam is his future.

They celebrate an anniversary. It’s a silly, made-up one: four and three-quarter months. They decide that it is to be celebrated with an epic Play-Doh session and Thai food. He’s out collecting their meal from a local restaurant when it happens. It’s raining and dark, headlights from passing cars temporarily blinding as they drive by and slosh wet street remnants all over the place. He’s gone out without an umbrella, despite Sam’s warning as he rushed for the door, and is holding his jacket over his head in the deluge as he tries to keep the take-out packages from disintegrating. There’s a man at the corner, trying in vain to wave down a taxi in the storm. He stands against the rain fiercely, never bowing, never letting the unfortunate circumstances dent his resolve. He’s lit imperfectly from behind by store windows, displays lighting and extinguishing in a garish way that makes him otherworldly. But he’s tall, sharp even in the rain, his bearing something Spencer recognizes as well as his own. He’s even wearing that government-assigned overcoat.

Before Spencer can stop to think, he’s running towards him, away from Sam’s apartment and the safety of her easy love and dry rooms. It’s a short distance but it seems like it takes him forever to cover it, and each second that passes is a moment for a taxi to stop and offer him a ride. When he makes the corner, he’s breathless, heart hammering so rapidly that he’s finding it difficult to focus on anything else. He reaches out, realizes he has to drop something – his coat or the food – and he ends up dropping both. Then he grasps that raincoat and yanks.

“Aaron!”

The arm gives way too easily when it should’ve resisted, an instinct born from years of self-defense training. The figure wobbles and turns, expression shocked, and that look doesn’t change when he focuses on Spencer. The lights continue to flicker across a frame that’s not tall enough, a weak chin, blank eyes that are the wrong color.

“Do I know you?” The voice is pissy and not deep enough. Spencer lets go, heart plummeting with such a sickening dive that he staggers back as if this stranger just hit him.

“S-sorry… I thought… I…”

He steps numbly, unseeing, trips over the bag of food he’s dropped. The stranger steps forward, his pissiness moderated by Spencer’s panic.

“Hey man…”

But Spencer can’t hear, can’t see. He’s watching Aaron walk away from him. It’s two years ago, and it’s right now. It’s the exact same thing. It’s losing that sliver of himself he’s felt the absence of every day since. It’s the knowledge, which he didn’t have at the time but does now, that the connection he’s giving up won’t be replaced. 

And he shatters all over again in an instant. A thousand pieces, and then a thousand pieces made of those.

He turns from the ghost of Aaron and runs into the darkness, welcoming the stinging rain and ignoring the “You forgot your food!” from behind him. He runs and runs and runs; it’s just muscle memory that carries him in the right direction. He thought he was better. He thought Sam had made him better. He sprints until he can’t anymore and then throws up into a planter outside a shop eight blocks away.

 

By the time he finds his mind again, he’s soaked to the skin and two hours late for their ‘back-in-fifteen-minutes’ dinner run. He staggers into Sam’s place like a drunk, numb and mute as she rushes forward half in concern, half irritation that he hasn’t responded to her text messages.

“What the hell, Spence? Where have you been? What happened? Where is the food? You’re leaving puddles all over the place…”

Her hands are everywhere when he doesn’t answer – his arms, his neck, his face, his hair. So gentle with him, even when she’s irked. She’s mumbling something about him being ice cold and needing to get him into dry clothes. She’s tugging at his sweater, manhandling him, asking endless questions that he just stares through, glazed and useless. She wrestles his sweater to the floor with a splat and then gets to work on his shirt, when something in him snaps.

_Where are you? I’m here._

He grabs her face and kisses her brutally. He’s never been this way with her, but he’s been this way before her. She yelps and clasps his wrists, not pulling him off, but unsure of him. He bites her mouth – it’s unkind – and when she tries to warn him, he pushes into her and silences her refusal. He goes deep, again and again, a hand now buried in her hair and yanking her head back at a sharp angle. He wants friction, pain, intensity to force him back to the present. He wants to send them both to the floor and mindless have her, to lose himself in it, to be free from this feeling of uncertainty. He wants _her_ \- he does – he wants her to be the one that frees him from this fear. He’s going to claw his way back to her. He asked and she let him in – he has to try harder and match that effort. He’s not going to let her down because of a ghost. She tries to pull away, makes a half-muffled yell to that effect, but his other hand hooks across her back and yanks her into him again. He’s impossibly hard, sharp as a blade… _I’m here, see?_

Then his left cheek explodes when Sam slaps him as hard as she can. They break apart, him reeling back from the unexpected shock, and Sam staggering away watching him warily like something hunted.

“What the FUCK, Spencer!”

Oh no. Oh god… “Sam… Sammy, I’m sorry…”

“I said NO!”

He didn’t hear it because he wasn’t with her. He was trying to fuck his inadequacy into oblivion again. He was forcing himself onto a ghost who refuses to change, to adapt, to grow. He wanted to hurt himself, but he ended up hurting her instead.

He sinks to his knees suddenly with a loud crack that reverberates in his teeth. “Oh Sammy…” he sobs once and curls into himself, just a shell of the person he thought he was becoming.

“Whatever happened while you were gone,” her voice is shaking, like she’s on the verge of tears. “You are _not_ fucking it out on me. And I’ll rip your balls off if you try to fuck it out on someone else.”

He nods blindly because he hears her, he understands. But he’s still curled into himself, face into his chest, his arms clutched around him as if he’ll burst apart if he doesn’t. There’s nothing in the apartment for a long time but the sound of Sam trying to control herself and Spencer breathing hard into his chest so he doesn’t break any further. Then the floorboards creak and the air shifts. She’s standing right in front of him, he can feel it. And her hand lands on his back as he’s curled like some penitent at her feet. Then she’s bending, feet scuffing as she kneels next to him, her fingers stroking through his sodden hair.

“Spence, please…” she begs brokenly. “Just talk to me.”

His heart is in his mouth. It’s all right there just waiting. And he wants to tell her. He wants her to dive into this with him and show him the way out. Maybe she can teach him how to stop the panic, the helpless spin he falls victim to when things get beyond him. But there’s something about this shame that he can’t let her have: that he gave up on the best thing he ever had for nothing, for a nameless fear he’s had since he was a child. How would she ever look at him with that sparkling effervescence after that? How could she love someone who could let love go so easily without a fight? But he has to let her in at least part of the way. She deserves that and it’s the only way he’ll earn a right to her again.

“I… I saw someone tonight. Or, I thought I did. It wasn’t real… just my mind playing a trick on me.” The words choke off into a painful noise. “I thought I was so much better, Sam. I really did…”

He hears her sigh. “Your ex.”

He nods but can’t look at her until she draws his face up with a hand under his chin. Her eyes are shining, her mouth pinched and firm.

“I’m so sorry, Sam,” he whispers, his voice embarrassingly fragile. “If I hurt you, or scared you tonight… I swore I’d never do that. This isn’t about you-”

“You’re right. It isn’t,” she interrupts quietly. 

“I… I can go. I’ll just…” he looks around, not sure what to gather to make his exit, and eyes too blinded by tears to see straight anyway.

“Spencer,” she sighs and draws his attention back. She suddenly looks exhausted by this. “Whoever taught you this fear of loss… well, they fucked you up pretty damned impressively.”

He blinks and the tears fall. She reaches forward and brushes them away, making him choke from the unexpected kindness.

“Come to the couch and sit,” she says, then gets up and leads the way. After a moment spent aching and shocked on his knees, he follows her, taking the spot she pats next to her on the sofa and staring at her in wonder as she butts up against his damp mess and turns on Netflix instead of any number of demands she could rightfully make in this moment. They are halfway through an episode of Jessica Jones before he can start to think again.

“It was Dad,” he murmurs, and he feels her turn against his body, waiting for the rest. “After he left, I never felt safe again. No matter how much I wanted to.”

It seems too simple to his exquisite mind that abandonment by the man who created you – but who didn’t care enough to love you – is the source of such a web of unfortunate events. But he’s too tired now to fight the thought. And then, as if his despair has primed him for a shot of clarity, his mind adds, _Why does it have to be more complex than that?_ Sam lays a hand along his chest and waits for him to meet her eyes.

“Do you trust me, Spencer?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Then listen to me very carefully. You won’t lose me. Ever. If we don’t work out, I’ll still be here with you. For brunches or game nights or Comicons. We’ll grow old together as friends. I promise.”

Aaron had promised the same thing. Spencer realizes that some promises can only work in partnership with another. Both Aaron and Sam have reached out, and it is, as it’s always been, up to Spencer to help fulfill this promise. Sam stares as the words sink into him, and then she swallows hard and shakes the hair from her eyes. “And we have to stop this,” she adds quietly. “For now, at least.”

His heart wilts and his guts heave. He closes his eyes against the sensations because he can’t argue for her to change her mind about this. Another beautiful thing he’s ruined, another promise he’s failing at…

“You need to work on this thing that happened tonight. This panic that takes you over. And if it’s tied to your ex the way I think it is, you need to take a good look at that too.”

He opens his eyes. She’s almost pleading with him. And then a tear of her own slips down her cheek. “I’ll help you any way I can, Spencer. But I can’t help you run away from it anymore. And I’m asking for us to step back… before I get to a point where I love you so much that I can’t make that call. I’m not giving up on you, and I’m hoping… praying, really… that your impressive brain can find a way through this. And come back to me.”

“Sammy…” he moans softly, and she pulls him in for a tear-stained kiss.

“Shoulda known you were too good to be true.” She tries for a smirk, still holding him close. “Never had much luck with love anyway. And you’re far too pretty for me.”

“I love you,” he husks and kisses her again, stronger this time. “ _This_ is what I want…”

“I know,” she whispers back and leans into him. “So, let’s get to work, okay?”

 

Sam keeps her end of the promise: she doesn’t leave and doesn’t back off. But they aren’t lovers anymore, and Spencer is surprised by how much he misses that. He begins sketching her whenever he misses her, and one day, as he packs away a dried watercolor of her bent over her drafting table in the golden light of her cramped apartment, he catches a glimpse of one of his last portraits of Aaron in the case. He pulls them both free and looks at them, critically. The level of detail is the same, the affection the lines have as they curve around their subjects, boldly defining them from the nothingness of space, speaks to a care that he’s rarely shown in other works. Possessed by a flash of need – to be known, to be seen, maybe – Spencer packs up his drawings of Sam and drives to her place. She’s not expecting him, but lets him in as she always does, and when he lays the works out along her floor for her, he makes her cry. It’s not pretty – it is huge, gulping sobs and a hand over her mouth to stop whatever’s in danger of coming out from escaping. Then he collects her against him, worried he’s screwed up again, rocking her.

“Jesus, I’m sorry, Sam. I thought you’d like them… ‘cause you’re an artist an’ stuff… They’re not good enough, I shoulda known.”

She pushes him away, and he staggers back, shocked to find her red-faced and furious with him. “I love them, you jerk! Look at how FUCKING BEAUTIFUL you want the world to be!” She points at the drawings viciously. “In _that world,_ you’re not scared of anything. You love, you see, you risk so much… Christ! Do you know how hard it is to see these and wish that you’ll eventually have enough faith in the rest of us to live that way _for real?!?_ ”

She chokes back another sob and rubs her tears away angrily. “Fuck, Spence… just… figure this out. Find a way to live here, now – imperfectly – okay? The world – _my world_ – is just so much better when you’re in it…”

“Okay,” he mumbles, still shocked down to his toes by her reaction and the way her words cut through all of his noise to take up permanent residence in his mind.

That’s the crux of it, isn’t it? Live _now_ – in the face you have, with the person beside you, despite your fears and flaws. Live _imperfectly._ Or spend your life hiding and waiting. People leave, things end, change cannot be stopped, but… isn’t that survivable? Hasn’t he continued on through all of that? He’s lived through a curse, losing the love of his life, and endless reinventions to find himself in Sam’s living room being asked to simply _try._ Suddenly, the request seems maddeningly reasonable.

He tells her that she can keep the drawings, but she doesn’t have room enough for all of them so she picks a few instead, including the one of her at her drafting table. She gives him a small smile from under her red-brown tangles and the splotchy marks on her cheeks.

“I want one of you,” she declares.

“One what?” he looks at her.

“A portrait. Draw yourself and give it to me. It’s not a request – it’s a challenge, Spence.”

He flushes immediately. “I dunno, Sammy. I’ve never drawn myself before.” For good reason. But weren’t the video logs sort of like portraits?

“That’s the point,” Sam says quietly. “See yourself, and maybe you’ll start seeing where you fit into all of this.”

He thinks about what his mother said about not necessarily knowing what we’re meant for until long after we’ve made our choices, and he decides that no matter his intellect, Sam and Diana combined are probably smarter than he’ll ever be. He decides _to try_ , at any rate.

He frets over it. Starts and despairs, tears options up and begins again with vicious slashes of frustration. He always seems alien, a man wearing a skin that doesn’t quite fit him. His cheeks are too sharp, his eyes too sunken, his arms and legs spidery and horrific. He’s ugly, weird, _other._ But he has to give Sam something; he’s made a commitment to that and this is one that he will not fail to deliver upon. A month later, he offers the least offensive portrait from his efforts to her while dodging her gaze.

“I don’t like it,” he mumbles gloomily as Sam snatches it from him and grins like a delighted toddler. She holds it at arms-length and stares at it in silence for almost two minutes, his nerves ratcheting up so tightly that you could probably play music off them. “You hate it,” he whispers, desperate for her to stop staring at it.

“It’s… it’s…” she struggles, and then she decides on it. “It’s fragile, and hesitant, and unsatisfied… but also, _so_ hopeful.” Sam gasps quietly. “Oh, Spence… it’s beautiful. Like I knew it would be if you gave it a chance.” She turns and gives him a huge grin. “I’m so proud of you, dork. This took balls.”

“It… it did?” And he can’t help stretching a little under the unexpected praise. She walks back to him, still smiling, curls a hand around his jaw, and pulls him in for a soft, lingering kiss. It’s not quite friendly, but he supposes that’s them at the moment in a nutshell. They both sigh a little when they come apart.

“Thank you,” she murmurs.

“You’re welcome,” he whispers back, and then they get on with their day.

 

That day, and that small act, changes something in Spencer. He doesn’t recognize it until much later, but there’s no doubt the portrait was the starting point. When he goes back to visit Diana, he talks about Sam, not Aaron, and his mother comments that he’s smiling more. 

“That doesn’t make sense,” he ducks away from her gaze. “We’re not even dating anymore.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Diana says cryptically. “Goodness begets goodness.”

Perhaps that emboldens him. When he returns from Vegas, on a high from both a successful visit and a welcome home dinner with Sam, Spencer reaches out in a completely new way.

_Hey Jeff, up for a coffee sometime?_

It’s late, and he doesn’t expect a response until the next morning, but words skitter across the screens in his darkened office almost immediately.

_IS THIS A PRANK? ARE YOU PUNKING ME?_

_No. Also, I don’t think people use the term ‘punking’ in that context anymore._

_YES I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE REAL COFFEE WITH A REAL VERSION OF YOU._

_Okay. Cool. Will you stop typing in all-caps now?_

_I DON’T THINK THAT’S A REALISTIC REQUEST AT THIS MOMENT, SORRY.  
WHAT HAS CHANGED? I HAVEN’T SEEN YOU SINCE YOUR INITIAL INTERVIEW 12 YRS AGO._

_Yeah, so, about that… You probably won’t recognize me._

_NO DOUBT._

_I’m serious, Jeff. I don’t look the same. At all. And I won’t be able to adequately explain it. Are you okay with that?_

There’s a considerable lag in the conversation, and Spencer starts to doubt what he’s started. Then,

_Like, plastic surgery? I didn’t think you were the type, Spencer._

_It’s sorta like that, and sorta not. Like I said, I can’t really explain it. But I’m still me._

He sits back, reads his words on the screen, and feels the truth in them for the first time. **I’m still me.**

_Dude, I don’t care if you identify as a cross-dressing, unicycle-driving, homosexual elephant. You’re my friend. Which is weird because you aren’t a killer, a pervert, or a person that I’ve physically spent much time with. If it took you 12 yrs to get okay with meeting me, then it took you 12 yrs. Let’s do this. I ain’t getting any younger._

Spencer finds himself grinning at the screen like a maniac, something in him inching further forward with pride, reveling in another moment of ‘fucking great’. Then the moment is crashed in typical Jeff fashion.

_But you won’t show up on a unicycle, will you? I fucking hate that clown-riding shit…_

When they finally meet, Jeff is considerably more reserved than he is online. And also shorter, fatter, and with less hair than Spencer remembers, but he’s no less sharp. He eyes Spencer over quickly and declares, “You’re four inches taller, fifty pounds lighter, have different eye and hair color, completely different bone structure, and you don’t appear to have aged at all. Am I missing anything?”

“No, that’s about it,” Spencer murmurs cautiously.

“This is way more than plastic surgery, Spencer.”

“I’m still me,” he reminds Jeff, leaning forward at their table and defying Jeff to say otherwise. Jeff waits.

“You certainly are.” He reaches across the table with an open palm. “It’s good to finally meet you, Spencer Reid. Again.”

They shake and Spencer grins, all toothy and weird, and Jeff hoots back like he’s been waiting years for this, which is probably close to the truth. And they never discuss his face again.

After coffee with his boss (that stretches into an afternoon meal, and then questionable shots with his boss), Spencer is too high off the joy of it, and spinning from the tequila, to go home. He ends up on Sam’s doorstep, grinning until his face hurts and babbling about the day the moment she opens the door to him. It’s twenty minutes later when he realizes he’s standing in her living room, aping every gesture like a sideshow freak, while Sam laughs so hard that she’s doubled over and breathlessly begging him to stop for a moment.

“Sorry,” he grins lop-sidedly. “I shoulda called first. Or waited. It was just… great, ya know? I mean, I’ve known this guy for years, and he’s terrible, but he’s MY FRIEND and I can’t believe how much it meant to actually see him in person and talk like we always do and it wasn’t strange or awkward an-”

Sam strides up and kisses him, silencing his tide and then curling around him to create a new one. He’s knocked off balance, but he kisses her back, pulling her in and lengthening it, eager and happy in a whole new way. When they slip apart, his arms have caught her up and her hands are buried deep into his hair. They stare for a moment, both a step behind and trying to figure out the way forward. Then one of Sam’s hands reaches and finds his, linking their fingers as she steps away and pulls him after her.

“Sam, what…”

“This doesn’t change anything,” she murmurs as she leads him to her bedroom. “We’re still not together.”

“Well then…” He’s confused, but the tequila makes him follow her without much coaxing.

“You had a great day, Spence,” she turns and faces him, drawing him against her as she smiles up at him. “You tried something that you were scared of and you rocked it. Then, your first impulse was to come here and tell me about it. And I’m excited for you – you have no idea. I just want to share that with you. _That’s_ what this is. Okay?”

“Okay, Sammy,” he whispers as he strokes the hair from her face. 

And it is. It’s cathartic and joyous, and he feels okay about leaving the following morning and _not_ setting expectations upon it. Maybe this is how they are meant to be – he doesn’t know – but the easing of anxiety between them is almost palpable. It’s just one step, but it feels like an important one.

 

Another step comes six weeks later as they stroll along the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool together on their way to meet the gang for dinner. The twilight and the water play tricks on the faces of those around them, and midway through a conversation about a new show Sam wants to put on, and her wish to include some of his work in it, Spencer looks up from their feet and across the shallow pond to see someone very much like Aaron walking arm-in-arm with a pretty blonde woman. Spencer stops halfway through his sentence and just stares. 

Then three things happen in quick succession: a painful stab of recognition/shock/fear, the sudden declaration of DON’T PANIC yelled inside his brain, and then Sam’s question of, “What’s wrong?” 

He turns to look at her, and her face changes – the sort of cautious, forced calm she’s learned to assume when he seems like he’s about to spiral. He hates that look on her, that it never existed before he came into her life. That hate adds more power to the yelled statement floating in his head, and he frowns, stirs his courage, and looks back across the pond. _Face it, you idiot, or keeping losing forever._ And it isn’t Aaron, just like the time before in the rain. It’s just some guy out for a walk with someone he cares about, just like Spencer. He turns back to Sam.

“It’s nothing.”

Sam looks across the reflecting pool, her shoulders sagging. “Is that her? The blonde? Is that your ex?”

“No.”

She sighs. “But you thought it was, didn’t you?”

“No, Sammy, I didn’t,” he says truthfully.

“Spence, it’s been over two years and you still can’t say her name aloud,” Sam grumbles, trying to hide it and her own panic at the way he suddenly and randomly lets her down. “I still don’t know anything about her, what she did to you-”

“Sam…” he warns. It’s not fair, but Aaron is still off limits. He’ll always be off limits.

“I think I’ve earned the right to know, Spencer,” Sam’s voice hardens a little as she takes a step back, her arm slipping from his. “After everything… I should know her name at the very least.”

“It’s in the past, Sam.”

“No, it isn’t, because when you see her doppelgangers around town, they send you into a tailspin.”

“I’m not in a ‘tailspin’ right now,” Spencer gets defensive, hands on his hips. There’s an inappropriate flicker in his chest: pride. He’s suddenly acutely aware that he _isn’t_ freaking out about this. “I’m right here having a pointless argument with you.”

“Pointless? Really?” Sam laughs unkindly. “So, you imagine that I’ll grow accustomed to you zoning out whenever you see someone who looks like a person you never speak of, but still somehow miraculously let myself fall for you at the same time, huh? Is that what you think?”

“Are we admitting that we’re trying to get back together then?” he responds curtly, deflecting like a champion. “Because if we aren’t together, how is my past relevant?”

Sam snorts at him. “That, right there, is why you don’t get this: your past is relevant whether we’re a couple or just friends. I’m trying to help, Spence, but you act like I’m trying to steal something from you. There’s damage there.” She taps his chest. “But you keep burying it thinking that you can ignore it until the right person comes along and heals you from it. That’s not how hurts work.”

“You don’t know anything about it,” he spits before he can stop himself, unsure where this defensive venom lives within him. Is she right? Is he afraid that she’ll steal Aaron from him somehow? Is he afraid that her critical insight will tear what they had apart, make it less meaningful? “I don’t want you to _heal_ it, Sam.”

“Well then, what do you want from me, Spence?”

He blinks, his anger changing into frustration on a dime. “I want you to let me love you!” It’s the truth, but a part of him also wants it because it’s _easier_ , and that’s something he can’t tell her.

“Guess what, smart guy? I WANT THAT TOO. But it’s never gonna happen if I’m competing with some goddess in your mind-”

“Goddess? You’re so off base, Sam…”

“Tell me her name.”

“No.”

“Tell me what she did to you.”

“ _No._ ”

“Spencer,” Sam grabs his jacket and shakes him a little, her expression changing as she tries something different and pleads with him instead. “You’re not the only one who’s insecure. Can’t you see how this makes me feel? It’s like you don’t trust me…”

He grabs her face and shakes her back. “I _do_ trust you, Sammy!”

“Then gimme something. Show me there’s a reason to hope…”

“Why can’t you see the changes I’ve already made? I did them because of you, Sam. Because I want us to work.” 

She’s changed him so much. She’s given him friends, understanding, confidence, and a place to belong. She’s challenged him, and demanded that he be more. And he’s responded, making a small but invaluable society around him for the first time in his life. He has connections and obligations, and it’s both thrilling and frightening. And he also has the tiniest foothold on his fear. That’s new and fragile, but even amidst this angry moment, he’s grateful to her for teaching him how to deescalate, to consider, to _see_ potential in each disaster…

“Then share her with me. Let me see this part of you too,” she whispers, like it’s a secret she’s promising to keep. He’s so tempted, but…

“No.”

“Why?!” she yells, backing away, hands flung out at her sides in exasperation he’s never seen from her before.

“Because it’ll hurt you!” he yells back. They are well and truly making a scene now, people halting in mid-stride on both sides of the pool and staring at them.

“WHY???”

“BECAUSE IT WAS EVERYTHING I WANTED!” 

He rocks back a step after the statement leaves him, and the air around them is stunned, silent, as if the world has suddenly darkened and gone deaf because of it. Sam’s face instantly goes blank, her eyes flicking away and her hands useless and forgotten in midair. In the twilight, he can still see that her cheeks are red. She tries to hide it by looking at her feet, her tangled red-brown hair falling into her eyes. Spencer steps forward instinctively, because he knows he’s hurt her even before his brain registers it, but she steps back and they both freeze in place. And his panic gets unleashed for real this time.

“Sam, please…”

“I… I don’t give you want you want…” she says quietly behind her hair.

“No, Sam, no – you _do_ give me what I want. It’s just… there are different kinds of wanting.” He sighs as she continues staring at her shoes. “This is why I never wanted to tell you about it.”

She huffs and looks away, up towards the Memorial. “You were soooo not ready for us,” she says distantly. He steps forward, unable to stand the space between them anymore, and her eyes flick back to his, tired and wary.

“Listen to me,” he huffs. “Yes, it was everything I wanted, but it ended because I couldn’t handle it. I squandered it, and I’m learning to live with that. It’s a process. _You’ve_ helped me with that…” 

She rolls her eyes at him and he grabs her arm to focus her again.

“I know that’s not what you want to hear. But… it’s so important, Sammy. _You_ are important. You brought me back to life, made me look at myself, asked me to be better, and I love you for that. I… I didn’t want to tell you about the relationship because… you’d always see it as a standard to be met, and I’m not sure that’s good for either of us. And…” He takes a deep breath in, trying to ready himself for her judgment. “I thought if you discovered that I threw away something that meant so much to me, you’d never want to be with me.”

She looks at him hard in the failing light. “Spencer,” she sighs. “I don’t know where this leaves us now. I truly don’t.”

“Isn’t love enough?” he chokes. Sam shrugs and looks back to the Memorial again.

“Would it be for you? If I told you I loved someone else with everything I had, and then turned to you and said that I loved you as well, but not _like that_ … Would you be satisfied with that?”

She says it so softly but the sting of it is something he won’t soon forget. It’s casually cruel, and he suddenly understands every inch of her hurt in this moment. He swallows hard, and begs the universe for a moment of grace. Just one, to pay her back for how much grace she’s extended towards him.

“If our roles were reversed, I’d love you the best way I knew how, Sammy. Because you’re simply amazing. I wouldn’t squander any of it. Not a single, goddamned moment of ‘great’. You’ve taught me that.” He breathes out expansively, and lets his hand fall from her arm. “But that’s just me.” 

Her whole body sags, like she’s trying to melt into the pavement, and her expression collapses. She utters a single, damp “Fuck”, and he pulls her into his chest. To his eternal relief, she hugs him back almost immediately, the two of them swaying quietly next to the rippling pool as people go on with their night around them.

“You’re too much trouble,” she mumbles into his jacket. He squeezes her tighter.

“Do I get to keep my friend slot?”

“Yeah. Because I’m a goddamned doormat, apparently.”

She squeezes him back and he ducks his face down into her hair with a deep sigh. “I’ll take that and run with it,” he chokes out unevenly. And he would.

 

He won’t give her up – he simply _won’t_ – but he recognizes the need to back off. His intensity, he decides, has always been both his best and worst feature, and it takes a special person to withstand it for any length of time. He has to learn to do his part as well, to see that taking a break from him isn’t the same thing as loss, and that it gives him an opportunity to refocus his energy in a healthier direction. Maybe this was always his problem, though Sam has adequately convinced him that it had nothing to do with why his Dad left. She loudly declares that William Reid was simply a dick who donated sperm while his mother did all the magic, an opinion that makes Diana cackle like a crone when he relays it in a subsequent visit.

Frank and Jamie buy a condo together, defying the general odds against them, and throw a wonderful housewarming party. Spencer watches them together with new eyes. He never bet against them – he saw something there from the moment he caught it on paper (his original drawing hangs proudly in their front hall, a treasured homecoming gift). But now he watches them and sees their ease, their loving shorthand as they move around their living room cramped with smartass friends, snarking and refilling drinks as they brush by each other with quick flicks of their broad hands. He can’t help but think of Aaron, imagining him in place of his two happy friends. For the first time in who knows how long, Spencer doesn’t fight the memory. He sinks into the aching hurt of _what could have been_ , and enjoys imagining the same satisfying ease with different hands.

Then he looks across the room and sees Sam and Sangeeta conspiring in a corner, and the hurt shifts. Now he imagines her hands brushing across him as they smile and move in a delicate, unseen choreography in some phantom home he dreams up for them. It’s different, but it is longing nonetheless. It has its own beauty. And another first happens: he doesn’t wish for one more than the other. He just _wishes._ He takes a sharp breath in at the realization. While he’d prefer to have more joy in his life and less pain, he’s no longer assuming that he’ll never achieve the happiness he sees around him tonight. Perhaps his mother was right all along: he hasn’t forgotten how to love and he knows what he wants his life to look like. It’s right here, all around him. And he grins to himself like the weirdo he is.

Later, after food and too much wine, he finds himself trapped in a deep-seated couch under the penetrating stare of Jamie with Sam limp and warm sagging next to him. Jamie grins wolfishly, and he knows he’s in trouble.

“So, when are you two gonna get your shit together, hmmmm?” Jamie growls without preamble. Sam huffs loudly and waves off his question with a dangerous flick of her half-filled wineglass. But Spencer marches right into the fray.

“Bored by the lack of drama already, Jamie?” he slurs with a smirk. “You only just moved in. Surely, there’s still hellacious fights to be had over cupboard organization, houseplant selection, dust ruffle purchases…” He hears Sam chuckle beside him.

“Yeah, yeah, Doctor. Make fun of the domesticated gays…” Jamie puts on a delicate air which utterly falls flat. He and Frank are the least stereotypical gay couple Spencer’s ever encountered. “But now that Frank and I are straightened out – pardon the pun – we need to work on you and Miss Suffragette Free-Spirit over there.”

“That’s _Ms._ Suffragette Free-Spirit, thank you very much, James…” Sam tisks.

“Pipe down, honey, the men are talking,” Jamie grins and waits to be smacked. Spencer wonders if he should crawl out of the way in case they decide to throw down. It’s a real possibility with this group. But Sam just swears at him, and Jamie refocuses on Spencer. “I’m serious, Spence. You two are good. Everyone can see that.”

“You’re drunk, Jamie.”

“Does that mean I’m wrong?”

“No,” Spencer mumbles, and feels Sam turn next to him as if his answer has caught her attention in the crowd. “But I’d just enjoy the lack of drama for a while if I were you.” He smiles at Jamie, who in turn looks perplexed at Spencer’s response. “That would be my choice if I had your luck.”

Jamie suddenly looks as if he regrets bringing the subject up, his eyes flicking guiltily between his friends. But Spencer feels fine, better than fine. Maybe it’s the wine and company lulling him into contentment, but he’s not overly worried about his future right now. It’s refreshing and completely foreign, and he’s lightheaded with it. When he turns to face an exclamation from Sangeeta and Hurley across the room, he discovers Sam looking at him, a fond smile curling her mouth.

“What?” he murmurs under the rest of the conversation.

“Nothing,” she whispers as she shrugs, still smiling in that way that brightens everything. Then she adds, “Dork.” But the way she says it is soft and close, as if it were a different word said in a place much quieter and darker than Frank and Jamie’s condo. His chest expands and he smiles back at her, gently cupping her hand in his between them. Nothing changes in this moment, and that’s fine, but now he knows that she won’t give him up either.

 

It’s an unusually warm autumn evening, which charms him into walking to the restaurant, which in turn means that he’s going to be late. As usual. Honestly, as a genius mathematician, you’d think he’d be able to properly calculate the maximum time required to traverse the longest possible route between A to B, where the terminal time is fixed, and the person waiting there has a tendency towards fury at his tardiness. He’s already organizing excuses in his head, by order of reasonableness and groveling, when the accident happens; he’s sure that if he’d been both on time and paying attention, he could have avoided it. He’s knocked to the ground with a sickening crunch of bones and his leg bent perilously beneath him and a tangle of strange teenager. The collision is so hard, so sudden, that he can’t catch his breath enough to speak or yell about the streak of pain lancing up his calf and circling his knee. Then a skateboard, from out of nowhere, smashes down into both of them.

“OW! Aww, fuck…” Painful shifting happens, and then a skinny arm flicks too-long blonde hair out of the kid’s face. He looks at Spencer, his mouth dropping down in shock under flushed cheeks. “Sorry, mister,” he huffs and then tries to roll off Spencer, which makes him yowl as his knee pings again. “Oh man, are you okay?”

The kid is now sitting next to him on the sidewalk as passersby stop to watch, but not to help. Spencer uncurls his screwed up leg with a hiss and flexes it experimentally.

“Ugh. I don’t think anything’s broken…” But his leg is gonna hurt like hell tomorrow. “Where did you come from?” Spencer growls before he can stop himself. The kid ducks his head and flops his hair back into his face.

“Yeah, I was…uh, going too fast. I’m always going too fast. It’s crowded here… I shoulda been more respectful of that. I’m really sorry, sir.”

Sir? What sort of skateboarding teen says ‘sir’? Or worries about being ‘respectful’? Spencer looks him over. He’s clean, his clothes well-kept, if unfashionably anonymous, and he’s young, a growth spurt probably making him seem older than his awkward glances say he is. Then Spencer sees the deck that hit them both, and points.

“I think your board took the worst of it.”

The kid snatches up the deck with a mournful cry as the front truck swivels loosely and one of the wheels cants in the wrong direction.

“Oh no!” He holds it close and looks terrified. Spencer reads the faded name stamped on the underside and realizes it’s an antique, by modern boarding standards anyway. “She’s gonna kill me…” the kid mumbles, his cheeks getting dangerously red.

“Who? Your Mom?” Spencer quickly looks around for an onrushing, furious parent.

“My aunt,” the kid says sadly, cradling the skateboard. “It’s her deck. She said I could use it until I got good enough for a better one. I can’t afford to fix it, and I _certainly_ can’t afford a new one when she takes it back ‘cause I ruined it…”

Spencer watches this kid and sees himself on a dusty dead-end street in suburban Vegas sweating in the summer heat, frantically working on his own board before the local kids figure out he’s there and try to take it from him…

“It’s not ruined,” he says quietly. The kid looks up, hope seeping out cautiously from under his blonde locks.

“Really?”

“Well, it just looks like the truck needs to be screwed down again, and maybe that front, right wheel needs aligning. Easy.”

The kid blinks. “You know how to do that?”

“Your aunt didn’t teach you?”

The kid shakes his head, no. Spencer smiles a little and finds that his legs don’t hurt so much now he has a task in front of him. He lifts his hands and makes a ‘gimme’ motion with his fingers. The kid passes the board to him and then shifts a little closer to watch. They are both sitting in the middle of the sidewalk as people walk around them like impromptu skateboard repairs happen on this street constantly. Spencer checks the board out quickly, and his eyebrows rise.

“This is a nice deck,” he says, quietly impressed. The kid perks up beside him. “Solid, sturdy…”

“You skate?”

Spencer shakes his head as he fishes out his multitool from his pocket. The kid’s eyes widen when he sees it. “Not anymore, no. But when I was your age I did. I didn’t have any money for a ride as nice as this though, so I learned how to fix what I had.” He raises the tool and wiggles it. “This is all you need to keep things rolling. That, and a lot of determination.”

“I’m not too good at fixing stuff…”

“Well, that changes right now.” Spencer flips the board and squints at the truck screws, then he selects the correct tool and shows it to the kid before he begins tightening it.

“So… no one taught you either?” the kid asks, shuffling just a touch closer. “You just… figured it out?”

“Well, my board was my freedom, right?” Spencer peers at him as he works. “Wasn’t old enough to drive and I needed to get around, you know…”

“Yeah,” the kid huffs.

“And the mechanics behind a skateboard aren’t too tough to figure out, it just takes patience. And it made me feel good that I understood what was wrong and how to fix it. That’s comforting, ya know? A little control over my world…” The kid makes an interested noise next to him, and when Spencer turns to face him, the kid is watching his hands intensely. “One of the screws is missing. Was it like this before?”

“I dunno. I don’t think so.”

“Look around. See if it popped loose on impact.”

The kid hops up and immediately begins scanning around for the missing piece. He’s very tall for someone so young – he can’t be more than twelve or thirteen – his clothes seem on the very edge of being too short and tight for him. Spencer remembers that awkwardness keenly and hopes that the rest of this kid’s life is a little easier on him. The boy leaps forward, nearly knocking a middle-aged woman with an armful of bags aside with a hurried “Sorry!”. Then he’s racing back to Spencer, grinning with the missing screw in hand, and then flops down next to him on the sidewalk again.

“Thanks,” Spencer blinks, a little taken aback by the kid’s enthusiasm, and then gets back to his work. He feels the kid’s eyes follow his every move, like he’s studying for a homework assignment.

“Are you, like, an engineer, or something?” the boy asks eventually.

“Actually, I work with computers. Why do you ask?”

“Well, you’ve got that tool thingie in your pocket. I figure that means you fix things all the time. _I_ don’t have a tool thingie in my pocket…”

“Maybe you should,” Spencer chuckles. “If you plan on smashing into innocent pedestrians regularly.”

“Maybe…” the kid seems chastened, and that wasn’t Spencer’s intention.

“It’s good to be handy, is all I’m saying.” He tests the solidness of the repaired truck, and it doesn’t move. He turns and grins at the boy, who smiles shyly back after a moment. “See? Now, let’s figure out what’s up with this wheel…”

Spencer has become deaf to the sounds of the people passing around them, but he’s suddenly aware of rapid footfalls getting closer.

“Jack? Jack!”

The kid’s hair flicks instantly as he looks up. “Dad?”

“What happened? Are you okay?”

“He’s fine. Just a little-” Spencer glances up from the skateboard to find himself staring at a shocked, sweating Aaron Hotchner. His lungs stutter to a halt at the same moment his heart goes dead in his chest, and he blinks for the long interval between that sudden stop and restart to make sure that this isn’t another trick of the mind. “A-Aaron?” he chokes out, and Aaron seems to stagger back a step himself. Definitely not a hallucination. 

The kid looks between the two of them. “You know my Dad?” Then Spencer’s eyes rivet to the kid.

“ _You’re_ Jack?”

“Well… yeah,” Jack shrugs.

“What… what happened here?” Aaron’s voice slices across Spencer’s brain and draws his eyes back again. It’s amazing how the sound is like magnetism to him – he just reacts and doesn’t think. Aaron is dressed for running, and given his look of exhaustion and his impressive tan, he still does it regularly and rigorously. His hair has more grey in it, the lines around his eyes are a little deeper, but the stunned expression is pure Aaron and hasn’t changed at all since the last time Spencer saw it. Almost as quickly as he recognizes the look, Aaron switches it to some bland mask instead, and Spencer feels himself constrict a little when it happens.

“I ran into him,” Jack explains and flicks a finger in Spencer’s direction. “It was an accident.”

Aaron turns to his son. “Were you doing tricks again?” His voice is quiet but critical. Jack wilts a little.

“Oh, you shouldn’t do tricks with this board,” Spencer offers unsolicited. Jack glances at him and Spencer gestures to the length of the deck. “It’s a long board. It’s not designed for that at all. The wheel base is wrong, you need trucks that can take that sort of abuse, and it’s far too heavy…”

Spencer glances between the blank stares of father and son, and feels a hot flash of awkwardness heat him all over. He ducks his eyes away and fiddles with the wonky wheel, wishing to melt into the earth and disappear forever. “Just saying…”

“Who _are_ you?” Jack asks.

“This is Spencer, Jack,” Aaron declares calmly, and when Spencer looks back at him, there is something in his eyes. Something known, wistful…

Jack gasps a little. “You’re Dad’s boyfriend.” Spencer whips his head around to face Jack, who looks like he’s just come face-to-face with something he thought was mythological.

“What? Ummm… yes. I mean, I was. At one point.” The present tense has really thrown him for a loop. It’s been over two years now. He stands to cover the awkwardness and Jack copies the movement, never taking his eyes off him.

“When did you get back?” Jack asks. Spencer opens his mouth but has no clue what to say.

“Jack means when you left to take care of your mother, Spencer,” Aaron pipes up cautiously. When Spencer catches his eye, he sees the hesitation there. “Because she got sick and you had to leave D.C.”

Spencer takes a moment to wrap his head around the story. Then he nods. “Well, that’s right. That’s right… I had to go away for a while to sort things out with her, but she’s better now and she doesn’t need me in Vegas any longer. I thought about bringing her up here to be closer to me, but she loves the desert heat. She’d never adjust to the winters we have here. But I go visit her every three months, and that seems to be a good compromise.”

Spencer smiles and rolls up on the balls of his feet with pride at this, and Aaron looks flabbergasted, possibly wondering if it’s not a story at all, or that, improbably, Spencer has become much better at lying.

“Oh… that’s… great,” Aaron mumbles.

“It is,” Spencer nods genuinely.

“So, why didn’t you call up Dad when you came back?” Jack looks confused.

“Pardon?”

“When your Mom didn’t need you anymore, why didn’t you get back together with Dad?”

“Jack,” Aaron interrupts. “That’s not something you should ask about.”

“Why? Don’t you want to know too?” Jack glances from his Dad back to Spencer, still just wholly curious and nothing more. “Why didn’t you? He was waiting.”

He was? Spencer looks to Aaron, but Aaron is glancing at passing traffic, a move so transparent that Spencer feels his chest seize painfully. _Aaron was waiting for him to fix this??? Oh god…_ He thinks he might be sick.

“Jack, I told you at the time it was complicated,” Aaron murmurs.

“Yeah, sure, Dad. Love is ‘complicated’,” Jack says with an edge and uses his fingers to make air quotes. “Like it’s any more complicated than finding out your Dad is gay and seeing some guy, and then handling that only to have that guy disappear and everything goes to shit again. Because there’s _no way_ that’s more complicated to an eleven-year-old…”

“Jack, language!” Aaron growls. It’s clear that the ‘buddy’ stage he once gushed about has been replaced by the tricky teen-rebellion stage. Spencer feels for him without having any insight into the dilemma, and then finds himself talking without thinking.

“Actually, Jack, you’re right: going through what you did was a lot more complicated, mostly because you didn’t have a choice in the matter, and you were just dealing with whatever was thrown at you.” Jack looks back to Spencer and his mouth pops open as his eyebrows rise in surprise to find someone siding with him. “We forget how confusing being this age can be. And it’s real and serious, and shouldn’t be taken lightly.” Spencer stares at Jack for a moment. “I’m sorry that we made things harder for you. Truly. We didn’t mean to, it just sorta happened. And maybe it’s good that you find out early that adults aren’t any more together than teens are. We just have bigger problems. But we could’ve handled it better. _I_ could’ve handled it better.”

Spencer can’t help sneaking a quick glance at Aaron, and his stunned expression matches his son’s.

“So, I hope you can forgive us,” he adds quietly, and Jack swallows and then nods a little.

“Yeah, okay. Thanks… thank you.”

“Okay then,” Spencer ducks his head down nervously in the resulting silence between them all. There’s so much he wants to say, but he isn’t certain he can separate what is important from what is hurtful now. Instead, he focuses on his hands, and the things he knows he can fix. “I’ll just fix this wheel and… you can get on your way…”

“You don’t need to do that, Spence,” Aaron says quietly, and Spencer closes his eyes for a moment to control the wave that rises in him when he hears it.

“It’s okay,” he chokes without looking up. “I know how, so…”

He keeps fiddling with the wheel, jiggling it with various tool ends to no avail. He thinks it’s the bearings. They must be caught up somewhere…

“But you loved, Dad, right?”

“Jack Hotchner,” Aaron snaps. “I swear to God, who taught you to be so ballsy?”

“Probably you,” Spencer says quickly, and before either Hotchner can respond, he lifts the skateboard over his head and rams it down into the pavement with a mighty crack. He senses everyone step back, but he’s focused on the skateboard wheel. He flicks it and it spins as smoothly as the day it was manufactured. Then he looks up and grins at Aaron and Jack’s worried faces.

“Ha! It worked! Just goes to show you: when in doubt, percussive shock.” He’s grinning toothily now as Aaron and Jack continue watching him with blank stares. His victory dims a little. “Because, you see, you’re not supposed to smash stuff, but… ummm… I guess that joke’s only funny if you’re an engineer…” 

Oddly enough, Jack laughs at _that._ Spencer sheepishly hands his skateboard back to him. “There. It should work fine now. Please don’t run down any more people. And get yourself a multitool.”

“I will,” Jack says with awe. “That was, like… magic.”

“Not magic,” Spencer lifts a finger and smirks just a tiny bit. “ _Science._ Which is better, because you can duplicate the results.”

“Yeah… okay,” Jack says, unconvinced, but he’s still looking at Spencer like he might be a wizard of some kind. When Spencer glances back to Aaron, he finds him giving much the same look, which makes heat rush across Spencer’s face.

Aaron clears his throat. “What do you say, Jack?”

“Thanks, Spencer. And, uh, sorry for running you down.” Jack pauses for a moment. “And thanks for what you said… about being a kid and having control an’ stuff…”

Aaron looks puzzled but Spencer just smiles, his chest expanding slightly in a completely alien way that he managed to give something valuable to another boy from his own fractured childhood. For an instant, it makes his youthful misery seem like it had a purpose. 

“Sure,” Spencer shrugs. He feels wonderful, like this is a moment of unexpected, remarkable _good_ … then,

“So, will we see you again?”

Spencer’s eyes whip back to Jack and he’s just expectant and guileless, in the way that only a child can be.

“Jack…” Aaron warns.

“Now that you’re back, and we’ve all met and stuff…” Jack continues in spite of his father.

“Well…” Spencer feels like he wants to melt into the pavement again.

“Jack, stop being insolent,” Aaron says quietly but stonily. “You’re old enough to know better. Some things aren’t your business and this is one of them.”

“Oh yeah? ‘Cause I really think it _is_ my business, Dad, since you’ve been such a pain in the ass to live with for so long…”

“I will not warn you about that language again, young man,” Aaron rumbles and Jack falls silent, flopping his hair in his face. Aaron takes a moment where everyone stands around in painful silence, and then he sighs expansively. “Spencer has his own life now, just as we do-”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jack waves his Dad off curtly. “It’s ‘complicated’. I get it. Just thought it might be nice to have a dude who comes around who isn’t grumpy all the time. Someone who’s cool.”

Spencer feels his eyebrows pop up. Does Jack mean him? He couldn’t possibly. He’s not even in the same zip code of ‘cool’. Spencer glances back at Aaron and sees the hurt flash across him for an instant before he hides it again under angry-parent, and Spencer’s heart throbs once, painfully, for this obvious father-son rift that he never wanted to happen.

“Whatever,” Jack mumbles as he slaps his skateboard back to the sidewalk. He tosses his gaze from his Dad back to Spencer and says, “See ya around, Spencer”, and rolls down the pavement on his newly-repaired board. After a moment as Jack blends into the evening crowd, Spencer hears another sigh behind him.

“I’m sorry…” Spencer mumbles.

“Don’t be. It’s not about you,” Aaron huffs. “It’s his age. And mine, maybe. We can fight over the weather these days.”

Spencer turns back and finds Aaron just staring at him. The mask is gone and his expression is one of sheer astonishment, like Spencer is a talking, walking burning star. Spencer is stunned by the sudden shift, the expression too open and honest for a busy thoroughfare on a pleasant night.

“You look…” Aaron chokes gently, seeming at a loss. “You look exactly the same.”

Spencer drops his eyes; it feels like a condemnation. Hadn’t he spent the last two years trying to change? Was none of that obvious to anyone?

“I mean, you’re different. You don’t even carry yourself the same way, but…”

Spencer looks up. “I don’t?”

“No,” Aaron shakes his head slowly. “There’s confidence now that you didn’t have before. The way you talked to Jack… you were just honest and open, you apologized…”

“Well, we didn’t think about him, did we?”

“No, I suppose we didn’t,” Aaron agrees softly with a strange look on his face. Then he takes a breath and reins in some of his wonder. “What I meant to say was: you still have the same face. I expected that to change, that I might walk past you in the street and never know you were there.”

Spencer’s breath catches in his throat. Oh god. All this time he imagined seeing Aaron everywhere and how that set off his panic, but he never considered what it would be like to imagine never seeing the face you loved again. Fearing that he could be anyone and always hidden from you. His chest gets tight and he coughs to get around the obstacles to breathing.

“Uh, yeah. Well, I guess this is who I’ve decided to be,” he mumbles, and Aaron smiles ever so slightly, his eyes softening in the process. “I don’t really think about it much anymore. Not day-to-day, anyway. It’s strange, isn’t it? It once ruled everything I did…”

“Well, I’m glad about that,” Aaron says, his smile momentarily getting into the range that used to freeze Spencer with joy. But he pulls it back. “Was that stuff about your Mom… was that real?”

“Yes. Yes, it is,” Spencer feels himself expand a little, rolling on his feet nervously. “I actually just got back from a trip to Vegas two weeks ago. She’s doing well, all things considered.”

“And she’s… adjusted to your appearance?”

Spencer nods. “Sometimes I have to explain it to her again, but there’s always the letters to fall back on. I tell her about the letters I wrote – that she’s received and read – and she knows it’s me.”

“You write letters?”

“Of course. Ever since you suggested it,” he says bluntly. “It was an excellent idea.”

Aaron blinks, his mouth tightening as if he’s trying to keep something in. The light is starting to fade but Spencer thinks Aaron’s cheeks might be getting darker too. Then Spencer thinks this might be _the_ moment – the one he’s wished for, where he could say the things he’s always meant to. But there are so many words, so much to say. How does he organize it? What does he keep in and what does he toss away in the tiny window that’s been offered to him? He decides to start with the tangibles…

“It turns out that the people who already know me aren’t bothered by the inexplicable appearance too much,” he continues. “Mom said that we began as one person – that she knew me before I had a face. Isn’t that an amazing idea? And Jeff, well… he seems to think he knows me _enough_ , so the questions that my face raises aren’t so important to him.”

“You… you met Jeff.”

“Yes,” Spencer nods. “We hang out from time to time. He doesn’t have a lot of friends, as you might well imagine given his prurient interests…”

“Indeed…” Aaron says distantly.

“Anyway, they are the only people who might have had trouble coping. Everyone else just knows me with _this_ face, so there’s no problem there.”

“Everyone else…” Aaron says the words as if he doesn’t understand their meaning.

“I mean, I could tell them, but that’s just inviting drama, isn’t it? Sometimes I feel guilty about keeping it from them, but… well, it’s not a story for everyone, is it? I’m sorry. I’m rambling… sorry.” He closes his eyes for a second and tries to bite back the escalating worry-excitement that talking so freely has awoken in him. He doesn’t have to hide anything from Aaron. It’s comforting, and it’s also exciting to tell him about all the changes that have happened. “There’s so much I wanted to tell you. You know, if I ever saw you again…”

“Spencer.” Aaron’s voice gently rouses him again. When Spencer opens his eyes, Aaron has that indulgent look about him that was always so compelling, and which Spencer doesn’t feel he deserves anymore. “It sounds like things have turned out well for you.”

And then there’s a lancing feeling right through the center of him as Aaron smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. There’s no malice in it, no anger, just a quiet melancholy like a shadow in the street on a gloomy day. And Spencer feels a tremendous wave of regret, not as desperate as it was in the beginning, but an unstoppable, powerful thing nonetheless. He looks at Aaron, older and distant – essentially a stranger to him – and he’s still everything Spencer ever wanted. Shouldn’t that have changed as he has? Shouldn’t the things that once drew him in have lost their lustrous hold as his experience widens? He takes a sudden breath in.

“Well, here’s the thing. The important part,” he stumbles, and then huffs out and tries again. “The thing that really needs to be said is: you were right. When you said I was more frightened of losing you than loving you. You were right about that. But I did love you. So much. And I’m sorry I didn’t have the courage or the experience to do that better. Or to fix it when it went wrong. I had to lose… all of that, everything, _you_ , just to figure that out. It’s a brutal irony I wish we could’ve avoided, but… life has a shitty sense of humor, I guess.”

They both stand there, staring, as the evening crowds continue to amble and chatter around them. Aaron seems unable to respond and Spencer’s guts sink. It’s been a long time – perhaps ‘sorry’ is too long overdue.

“I, uh…” Spencer continues quietly, wringing his fingers a little. “I’ve begun to learn the difference between wanting and needing.” He thinks about Sam and the things she’s taught him. He thinks about the way she insists that he _contemplate_ his impulses, and about how she fiercely demands the respect and love that she so freely gives to others. “Wanting is a choice. Wanting is sexy, captivating… wanting is complimentary. Needing is compulsion. It’s obligation and lacks the agency to say ‘no’. Needing is, well… needy, and that’s not attractive. That’s not loving.”

Spencer looks at Aaron, and even in the growing twilight, Aaron’s expression is quietly unmade. He seems to be slouching, becoming unlaced while not moving an inch. Or it could just be exhaustion – he was running, after all…

“I did both with you, Aaron, but, in the end, the needing took over.” Spencer feels a lump lodge its way into his throat and he works hard to shove it back down. “You were right that I didn’t change at all after you came into my life, even after all of my big talk about you embracing your past. I was still frightened of my condition, my life. You were there to show me I wasn’t alone – to encourage me – but I treated you the way I treated all of those women I slept with to stop me from going mad. That’s all I knew how to do, even though…” He stops, looks away, then flicks his eyes back again. “Even though you got all the way in. You were my missing piece too.”

Aaron makes a strange noise that drifts into the night air and is lost amongst the people passing them and the traffic on the road. But he doesn’t follow that sound up with anything. Spencer swallows hard and pushes through the rest.

“So, I became desperate to keep you without showing you the want underneath that fear. Any change was a threat to that, which is why I couldn’t meet Jack. It turns out that wasn’t so hard…” Spencer gestures vaguely in the direction Jack took behind him. “The short version of this apology is: I didn’t know who I was, I couldn’t see myself, and I placed the onus of protecting me _and_ healing me on your shoulders without taking any responsibility for it myself. And that wasn’t fair. Your only responsibility was to love me, and only when that was what you wanted as well. You didn’t sign on for the rest. So, I’m sorry, Aaron… ‘cause I fucked this up when all I had to do was admit my fear and _try._ I let go of everything I wanted without a fight. You deserve more than that.”

Spencer clamps his mouth shut, trembling slightly and fighting to remain clear-eyed as he stares at Aaron. It’s difficult but worth it – this is another moment of ‘good’, he’s certain. Aaron needs to know that he mattered, and Spencer needs to tell him that. They stare for a full thirty seconds without anything, and then Aaron clears his throat roughly.

“Spencer…” he chokes, but there’s nothing more, just his face ducking away into the shadows of the evening. Spencer’s heart throbs for a split-second, and then a calmness descends as a voice inside his head says _This isn’t about reconciliation. It’s about making a better goodbye…_

“That’s all I wanted to say,” Spencer mumbles quietly and then shrugs, shuffling past Aaron slowly, trying to place a graceful exit at the end of his confession. “I’m actually genuinely glad I finally had the chance to say it. Didn’t think I ever would, and it’s too important not to.”

“Spence,” Aaron grabs Spencer’s arm lightly as he passes him, and Spencer turns back, their positions reversed. “I… you should know… I’ve never regretted it. Even with… everything that came afterwards. I know it was a brief moment for both of us, but… it was the most _me_ I’ve ever been.” Aaron’s grip tightens slightly as he nervously licks his lips and his eyes cast about. “It was…”

Then Aaron stops. His gaze is caught on something just over Spencer’s shoulder. He focuses for a moment, and then his hand gently slips from Spencer’s arm. “There’s someone over there waving at us. I don’t know her.”

Spencer twists and squints. A block away is Spencer’s dinner destination, and next to the front patio is Sam, waving and smiling like a maniac when their eyes meet. He lifts his hand and waves back, then holds up a finger in a universal ‘gimme a sec’ gesture before turning back to Aaron. He wonders if her smile means that she won’t tear into him for being so egregiously late.

“That’s Sam,” he mumbles. “I’m late for dinner, like always. It drives her bonkers.”

When he looks at Aaron, there’s a flicker of something – like the flash of a firework as it fades and falls to earth – and then his smile that doesn’t reach his eyes returns.

“That’s understandable,” he says quietly and reasonably as he takes a step backwards. His mouth twitches for an instant, as if he’s arguing with himself about what to say next, and then he shrugs to the pedestrian path behind him. “I should go too. I’ll never catch up to Jack now, but I have to try. This skateboarding/jogging thing is the only activity I can get him to do with me anymore. Although it’s mostly just me racing after him while he runs away from me.”

“Oh, uh, sure,” Spencer stumbles. He’s not sure there’s more to be said, but his whole being irrationally wants Aaron to remain there anyway, standing in awkward silence. “Maybe you can catch him. Or maybe you can bribe his attention by getting him a multitool. Or, uh, maybe you could learn to skateboard too.”

Aaron laughs out loud, heartily and so familiar that Spencer feels himself involuntarily melt a little to have elicited it.

“I’ll never be that cool, Spence.”

Spencer smirks back. “As if _I_ was ever that cool. But I still figured out how to ride a board. Coolness is utterly beside the point.”

“I don’t know about that,” Aaron’s laughter dims to a chuckle. “You still seem pretty cool to me.”

Still? Spencer blinks, at a loss for a response to that or the sudden, traitorous flip his guts do. Aaron watches him for a moment and then the lines around his eyes soften.

“Go on. She’s waiting for you,” he says gently. When Spencer focuses on him again, Aaron juts his chin in the direction of Sam. Then he turns without another word and begins to jog away.

“Aaron!” Spencer calls out, and Aaron turns, jogging in place. “It was good seeing you again.” He means it. If it weren’t completely unrepeatable, he’d suggest that they’d try it again sometime.

Aaron smiles at him, a smile that is unreadable, and he waves. “It was.” Then he’s jogging in the direction of his long-disappeared son and Spencer watches him until the ambling crowd swallows him.

Spencer turns with a twinge of pain. He chalks it up to his bruised knee, but in truth, the twinge comes from higher up than that. The thing about having moments of great is that they are just _moments_. He remembers when those moments were strung together into swaths of murmured conversation, warm embraces, strange meals and stargazing and long explanations about prog rock… He sighs and wonders where he’d be right now if he had even slightly more of his shit together when he’d struck up a conversation with a gruff stranger in a forgotten café years ago. But he shakes the thought away quickly, and shuffles to the restaurant where Sam is still standing, watching him closely with those cagey eyes of hers.

“Hey,” he gusts when he finally makes it to her, brushing her cheek quickly with his lips as she presses into it. “Sorry I’m late. Did they give our reservation away?”

“Not yet.” She pulls back and looks him over. “What was that about?”

“What?”

Sam sighs. “I came out here to call you and find out why you were so fantastically late…” She gestures to the spot where Spencer and Aaron had been, which is now shadowy and dark that the sun has set. “And I see you sitting in the street with some kid… and then you have this weird altercation with a jogger? Are you experiencing some sort of sudden-onset, late-blooming athletics kick or something? ‘Cause if you’re gonna turn into a jock on me, this is stuff I need to know.”

She’s laughing gently at him, and it’s funny because he’s fabulously uncoordinated. He could make something up, and he considers that for a split second before he sighs and just lets that idea go.

“That was my ex,” he says quietly but clearly so there’s no mistaking it. “The boy is his son.”

He waits, watching Sam with no expectations. Her smile fades, eyes flicking to the phantom spot over his shoulder, and then back to him while not really seeing him. He watches patiently as color rises in her face and a tiny crease forms between her brows like it does when she’s really concentrating. She licks her lips once, and then finds his eyes again.

“Your ex is a man,” she says. Spencer nods.

“His name is Aaron.” He waits some more.

“Wow. Ummm,” Sam’s face creases and then smooths with great effort. “Have you always… liked…” She can’t finish. He cups her cheek with one hand to draw her eyes back to him.

“Aaron is the only man I’ve ever been with. I was never interested in that before him. My dating history has always been women.”

“And now?”

Spencer pauses, tries to find a way to put it into words. “Aaron was a subset of one. I can’t imagine wanting other men.”

And Sam’s whole demeanor changes. She sinks heavily into his hand and closes her eyes, sighing deeply as she rests against him. Then she devastates him. “Because he was everything you ever wanted.”

Spencer chokes, his heart rabbiting in his chest as he struggles. Then Sam looks up at him, eyes a little glassy, but her no-bullshit expression still firmly in place. He cups her with his other hand and draws her close so that they lean together, fortified and intimate – it’s everything he loves about her.

“This is why you never told me about ‘the ex-girlfriend’,” she whispers.

“I never lied about it, Sam. I just wasn’t… specific.”

“You know that’s kind of a lie too though, right?”

“Would you have even considered any of this if I’d told you the person who broke my heart was a man?”

His voice wavers a little when he asks it. The idea that he might have missed out on the joy of knowing Sam as well as he does frightens him a little. But then he reminds himself to be calm, and that _that_ never happened.

“Would you have let me in, Sam?” he whispers, stroking her cheek. “Would you have promised to stick with me, no matter what?”

She gives him an incredulous look, though it’s slightly blurry with them so close together. “Of course, I would, you dork. Do you think my friend slots are so shallow?”

He shakes his head, no, quickly and then adds, “But what about love, Sammy?”

Sam takes a deep breath and lets it go. “I dunno. Kinda hard for me to compete with that slice of tall, dark and handsome.”

“And that’s why I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t want you to compete. What we have is different than that, Sam. There’ll never be another Aaron. And there’ll never be another you. The two can’t be compared.”

Sam sighs again but doesn’t say anything. Her hands skim his jaw and hold him still as she moves and slowly kisses his brow. 

“I wish you were easier to love,” she murmurs against his skin before pulling away. He looks at her and feels older than he is.

“Me too,” he murmurs back.

She stares at him for a long time with restaurant patrons brushing past them, grumbling that they are blocking the entrance, or being too curious about the emotional drama unfolding in front of the patio. Eventually, Sam looks over his shoulder again, eyes narrowing.

“So… he has a kid, huh?” she muses. “That must have been…”

Spencer turns too, though both Jack and Aaron are long gone into the night. “Complicated. Yeah, it was.”

He looks back at her when her hands slip from him.

“C’mon,” he murmurs and juts his head towards the restaurant. “Let’s see if they gave our table away.”

“Nah,” Sam shakes her head and rocks on her feet. “Not hungry anymore. Think I’m just gonna walk for a while.”

His chest gets tight and he feels his mouth drop open to take in more air. But before he can catch up to the ‘why’ of all of that, Sam places a palm across his chest.

“Spence, you’re not losing me. Deep breath… I can feel your anxiety from here.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. Just _trust_ me, okay? I wanna clear my head and be alone tonight. That’s all. Like you said – this shit is complicated. But you’ve still got me, and I’ve got you, and that’s a permanent state, alright?”

“Alright, Sammy. I trust you.” He says it with a still-jackrabbiting heart, but deep down he knows she means it. That’s something.

“Call me later, okay?” She looks at him until he agrees, and then she brushes her lips against his cheek before she, too, walks away into the shadows.

He’s left on the edge of the thoroughfare in the soft evening breeze, alone in a city full of buzzing, nocturnal delight. He sighs deeply, looking up through the trees that are only beginning to shed their leaves for the season. The city blocks out all but the brightest of stars, but somehow, its calming to see a handful of them and know that their light shines over the happy and the miserable with equal mystery – the egalitarian nature of the universe. It’s almost as comforting to him as math.

In time, he turns on his heel and walks back the way he came – taking the long way home – and in the back of his mind, he hears the chords of ‘Us and Them’ float up to match the beat of his footfalls.

 

He can’t sleep – he just lies there and stares at the ceiling, _wondering._ He doesn’t enjoy the sensation of not knowing, but that’s all his life has been about for the last few years. It’s funny how you can get used to some things, like a new face, but not others, like uncertainty. A choice has risen before him, and he can’t run away from the responsibility of it this time. He’s caught between what he wants and what compels him. There are risks with either choice, but there’s also joy to contend with as well. A part of him resents being forced to elect one over the other, but then he thinks about the times he held Aaron’s complete focus, or mesmerized Sam with his drawings – and he understands the desire to be someone’s only _other._ People deserve to be wanted that way.

He rolls to grab his phone from the bedside. It’s late – he knows he won’t get a response tonight, but he wants to send the question before he has second thoughts. 

_* Is it really that complicated? *_

He places the phone back and rolls into the pillows. Somehow, he forces himself to sleep.

The response doesn’t arrive until two days later, and it’s simply one word: _Coffee?_

Spencer smiles to himself and begins typing…


	14. Sunday, September 20

Aaron is nervous. In fact, he hasn’t been this nervous since he sat the Bar exam. He arrives far too early and ends up spending fifteen minutes in the men’s room trying to determine if throwing up would be beneficial or not. As he splashes water on his face and stares at his aging, greyed expression in the mirror, he hears Prentiss’s words in his head.

_“Why are you setting yourself up like this again, Hotch? It’s not worth it. Have you forgotten what things were like after it happened?”_

_“It’s not like that this time. He’s with someone else.”_

_“Even more reason to bail,” she says with a look of disapproval. “He’s moved on and you haven’t.”_

_“Emily…”_

_“Well, you **haven’t**. It’s been over two fucking years already. How magical could his dick possibly be?”_

_He sighs. “It’s not the sex. We were… are… connected.”_

_“Bullshit. That’s romantic, self-defeating bullshit.”_

_“I don’t know why I’m telling you any of this. You are the least sympathetic person I know.”_

_“You didn’t tell me – I guessed. And it wasn’t even that hard,” she huffs. “And NONE of this would be happening now if you’d let me speak to him back when it happened and aggressively suggest that he move to another state…”_

_“Emily,” he growls in warning. “He’s been hurt too.”_

_“Not enough. Not the way you have, Aaron.” Prentiss’s gaze gets unexpectedly soft and urgent as she grabs his arm. “Please don’t hurt yourself anymore. Call it off. Put him in your past for good.”_

_And his only response is to sigh deeply and turn away from her while she mutters, “Fuck” behind him._

All of that runs through him as he stares at his reflection and knows his friend is right.

“Just walk out of this place and never look back,” he whispers.

But he doesn’t. He knows he’ll never get what he wants, that nothing will come of this meeting. He’s too old now, and obviously too needy in the exact way Spencer described as being unattractive and obsessional. It was six months, two years ago, and honestly, he’s had relationships with neck ties that lasted longer. And Spencer has _changed_. It’s both amazing and heartbreaking to see it: he’s become the man Aaron always thought he could be, but he didn’t need Aaron to do it. In fact, he needed the absence of Aaron to do it. _That’s_ why nothing will come of this meeting.

But the invitation was offered, and he keeps running over everything Spencer said. The _truth_ of it is unassailable. The honesty of the words, the forthrightness of the intention in them… it’s as if Spencer has crystalized in two years, all of his twitchy, fractured self-doubt distilled down into one clean, transparent frame. And Aaron keeps seeing him in his mind’s eye with Jack, talking to him like a person, not a child or his son. His pulse quickens every time, even though he knows what that reaction is about. He’s always been a soft touch when it comes to Jack. So, he’s curious to see more, and flattered that Spencer wants that as well, and, yes, perhaps he’s weak that he wants just another hour or two of that quivery sliver of faint possibility that Prentiss so easily dismissed as ‘self-defeating bullshit’. She’s probably right – she usually is.

He fusses with the untouched beer placed in front of him and wonders if he should’ve worn a suit. He’d feel better in a suit – more controlled. But it’s Sunday and, realistically, it would be as obvious as holding up a sign that says, ‘I’M AFRAID OF YOU’. So, he tugs at his sweater and smooths a crease in his dark jeans, and wonders if the odd casualness will throw Spencer for a loop like this whole afternoon is throwing Aaron around.

Then Spencer is _there_ , rushing through the busy restaurant in a flurry of apologies and wind-blown color. There’s a leaf in his hair, and when he lifts the strap of his messenger bag over his head, mumbling about weekend congestion, it flutters free and sails to the floor at Aaron’s feet. He’s breathless for an instant, watching that happen in a curled snapshot of slowed time before everything races forward again into reality. Spencer sits with a huff and then smiles.

“Hey,” he says. “Glad you could come.”

His hair has gotten long, almost into ‘homeless poet’ territory, and his penchant for disturbing sweater vests hasn’t changed at all. This one has a pattern of tiny fox faces knitted into it in greys and creams and browns, and it seems to make his dark dress shirt shout where it peaks through at his neck and cuffs. His jacket is fine and trim, the color of slate which only emphasizes the silly vest even more. Aaron wonders if he plans his outfits for shock value; he knows Spencer is a planner. But all of this fades into the background when he realizes with a sickening drop of his gut that he thinks the vest is great, and he wonders what it would feel like with Spencer’s warmth still heating it, and the hair is amazing and not at all ridiculous, and that his smile seems a shade nervous and his face is tanned and that looks fabulous on him, and that the leaf was just _fucking perfect_ , and… 

Shit. Prentiss was right. This is gonna hurt like hell, isn’t it? And he’s going to dream about that fucking sweater vest.

Spencer orders a glass of merlot and spends most of his time playing with the glass rather than drinking it. Aaron’s beer goes flat in much the same way. They talk for hours though Aaron would be hard pressed to remember many details. He also doesn’t say much, just encouraging Spencer to talk with nods and smiles he can’t seem to stifle. Spencer has _grown._ Every story he tells illustrates that. He has friends, a social life, hobbies, goals – he even talks about an art show coming up with a handful of his sketches in it. He doesn’t seem aware of how different he is now, and perhaps that’s the point. Real growth is slow, incremental, an aggregate of experiences. He’s so much more than he was, and it makes Aaron’s chest expand to the point of bursting to see it. But it also forces him to stare into his beer, blinking back the knowledge that these changes have no connection to him; they happened on someone else’s watch.

And that someone else seems impressive. Sam sounds like the best thing that could’ve happened to Spencer. She’s open and nurturing while still demanding excellence from him. And she sounds fun. Spencer needs fun, and no one’s ever accused Aaron of being that. He’s not sure what their relationship status is – Spencer isn’t clear about it – but it’s a comfort to know that Spencer landed amongst good people. The take-away from all of the ‘Sam’ stuff is that Spencer is loved, and has learned to love better as a result. Aaron tries to be happy about that.

They are two hours into their talk when Spencer finally takes a few sips of his wine and sighs.

“I’ve been talking your ear off. Sorry,” he grins. “I guess I’ve really missed this.”

Aaron’s stomach cartwheels before he can tamp it down. He gulps down some beer to give his innards something to focus on.

“So, tell me what’s new with you…”

Aaron shrugs and feels his cheeks heat slightly. _Nothing’s new. I’ve been in stasis for two years just trying to breathe without you… it’s pathetic. Just ask Emily._

“Nothing, really,” Aaron rumbles, and Spencer cocks an eyebrow of disbelief. That’s flattering of him. “Same job, same life. I’ve just gotten older.”

“You’re not old, Aaron,” Spencer smiles gently. Aaron gives him a small smile back as a hand drifts up to smooth the grey hair peppering his temples. He learned his lesson from Rossi, who started dying his hair when the greys became too much. It looked ridiculous, so Aaron grudgingly accepted them when they came even though he still doesn’t feel much older than twenty-five on any given day.

“You’re wrong,” he says quietly. “But thank you.”

Spencer’s smile fades as his eyes flick over Aaron. His expression changes, like he’s lost in thought, but his eyes move rapidly as if he’s taking inventory of him. After a moment, something heated flashes through those eyes, but is gone almost immediately. Aaron isn’t even certain that he really saw it.

“One thing’s different, I suppose,” Aaron stumbles in order to avoid thinking about Spencer’s eyes. “Jessica’s engaged.”

Spencer’s eyebrows pop. “Wow. When did that happen?”

“This past spring. Honestly, I think the whole thing caught her off guard. I had this feeling that she’d resigned herself to permanent single status.”

Aaron tries not to slouch. He’s delighted for Jess. But a scared, selfish part of him is resentful that he no longer has the option of her to fall back on in his old age. There was something comforting about her idea that they marry if they both found themselves old and alone together. Now, he’ll have to do that on his own. He’d felt pity for her when she’d told him about it, back when he was so sure of his love for Spencer, but that goes to show you how quickly life can turn on you.

“It’s part of the reason why Jack is as moody as he is,” Aaron continues, shaking off his sad self-absorption. “Jess still thinks of Jack as her own child, but… her relationship means less time for him, and he’s having trouble adjusting to it. But Jess’s guy is great. He gets her, gets this weird set-up she has in our lives. I’m sure it’ll all even out eventually.”

“Well, good for her,” Spencer nods after a moment of thought. “She deserves a chance at her own happiness. One that’s just about her and no one else.”

“Yeah, she does.” Aaron chokes on his beer. It feels like criticism. He knows he’s used Jess to make his life easier for too long. She was Haley’s substitute without any of the benefits. It was shameful behavior on his part. And now she’s breaking free, just as Jack will in a few years. The connections in his life will make stronger connections of their own, and no longer need him. Then where will he be? How will he find his own happiness? He thought he knew what that was, but now it’s sitting across from him having been absent for two years finding happiness without him…

“I guess that’s the proof then, isn’t it?” Spencer says after a long, silent moment. Aaron looks up at him.

“Proof of what?”

“That it’s never too late.” Those hazel eyes bore into him, too wide and gentle, and Aaron has to fight the hysterical urge to read something hopeful into that statement for him. He imagines Spencer sliding his hands across the table and declaring the past two years to be a mistake, even though that is patently false. He pictures the shape of Spencer’s mouth when he asks if they can try again. He feels the heat of Spencer’s fingers tangling into his when he tells him, brokenly, that there’s never been anyone but him.

Aaron pulls up sharply in his chair, angry at his selfish daydreaming and the way it’s made his heart hurt. Spencer twitches across the table from him, and it’s only then that Aaron realizes how violent his movement was.

“Sorry,” he mumbles.

“E-everything all right?”

“Sure. I just… forgot about something I have to do.” He lifts his beer and drains it. “I should probably get going.”

“Oh. Okay.” 

Spencer sounds defeated, but he rises from his seat and drops a few bills on the table before Aaron has a chance to. Then he waits for Aaron and they walk out together in silence, side by side. Spencer pulls up on the sidewalk and their shoulders brush by accident. And Aaron melts because it isn’t only that he’s never fallen out of love with this man, it’s that he misses his friend as well. The man who found him underneath all his layers in less than three days. The man who made breaking-and-entering a grand, inviting gesture. The man who made him face his past – made it safe to be vulnerable – turned it into strength…

“Ummm, so, this was nice. Good, I mean,” Spencer stutters while rolling on the balls of his feet. “I enjoyed it.”

“Me too,” Aaron barely eeks out.

“So, ummm… maybe we could do it again sometime. If you feel like it.” Spencer’s eyes flick around nervously. “I’ll understand if you don’t, but… if you do, you know how to find me. I’ll leave it at that, okay?”

“Sure,” Aaron says softly, knowing that he’ll never call because Prentiss was right and this beer has probably set him back a good six months and that he can’t pretend that he’ll ever be able to separate the friendship from the love.

“Okay then.” Spencer gives him a hopeful grin, all teeth and good intentions. It’s absolutely killing Aaron. When did Spencer get so mature and together about all of this? And when did Aaron devolve into a basketcase instead? “See you around, Aaron.”

Spencer turns and walks away, bouncing a little on his heels as if he’s feeling great. He’s just so _sure_ about this. Aaron envies that with an almost incendiary fury. What would that be like, to understand your place in the world and be content with that knowledge? The only thing Aaron is certain of is that he’s only ever felt complete when Spencer loved him. And that’s a sad realization, because Spencer was only a sliver of himself then. What does that say about the love? But it’s the only truth Aaron knows for sure, and if you only have one truth, you don’t have a ton of options open to you.

“Aww, screw it,” he growls, and marches after Spencer until he catches him by the arm and turns him around too quickly.

“Aaron, wha-”

Aaron cups Spencer’s jaw and draws him in for the softest kiss he’s ever given. He’s driven by desperation, loneliness, urgency, but if this is the last kiss he’ll ever give this man, he wants it to be beautiful. He holds his breath, brushes shocked lips until they fall open, and then he pushes in, cradling Spencer’s lips with his own as if they were priceless. Because they are. That, and everything else about him. He pulls gently, gasps, and then latches on again. He does it over and over until he’s dizzy and has to break free and face the consequences of it. He’s still cupping Spencer’s cheek, leaning into his forehead and slipping his eyes closed because he’s not brave enough to look at Spencer’s expression. Spencer isn’t touching him at all. Aaron takes a deep breath and goes for it.

“I’ll never call you because I can’t _not_ do that,” he gasps, his other hand rising to stroke through Spencer’s too-long hair. “I know it’s over. I know you have someone else. This isn’t a plea for something that will never happen. It’s just… you are still everything to me. You’ve made so much progress, but I can’t get past that. I’m _so happy_ for you, Spence, you’ll never know how much. But. I miss you. All the time. That’s who I am, and that means I’ll never be able to sit across from you and truly wish you well. So… let’s agree to forgive one another – because I forgive you – and go our separate ways.” 

He brushes their lips softly. 

“You were the making of me, Spencer,” he whispers. “I wouldn’t go back and undo any of it. I’ll love you for the rest of my life. You can’t stop me. But I can let us go. I just… needed to tell you before I did it.”

He holds steady for a moment, still not brave enough to open his eyes. “Don’t expect my call. Go live your life.”

There’s more silence. He can feel Spencer’s uneven breath against his mouth. He’s more than a little surprised that Spencer hasn’t wrestled out of their embrace yet. Then…

“No.”

Aaron’s eyes flick open without his consent. Spencer is staring at him. He seems equal parts shocked, angry, flustered…

“No… what do you mean ‘no’?” Aaron murmurs.

Spencer’s hands rise and catch Aaron under his jaw. He pulls him back to his lips as both of their eyes slip closed. The kiss is a little more heated than Aaron’s was, but also tinged with that same reverence, the same gentle give-and-take. They slot together like they were designed that way from birth, and then they break apart with soft gasps before curling in and doing it once more. Aaron can’t think at all. His whole existence has narrowed to Spencer’s mouth pulling on his and the warmth of his hands bracing his face. If he died right now, he’d say it was worth it. In the grip of the love of his life, with the taste of wine on his lips, the quiet moan of his love bouncing around inside his skull driving him mad…

Spencer pulls back slowly, taking Aaron’s lip with him part of the way. Then they are panting and looking at each other on the street, hands gripping each other too tightly.

“I said, no.” Spencer clears his throat and swallows to gain some control back.

“No, to what?”

“I’m not leaving you behind, Aaron.” Spencer’s eyebrows narrow over his brow.

“But, Spence…”

“Sort your shit out,” Spencer interrupts with a growl that won’t be ignored. “You’re a mess of conflicts and needs right now. I should know, because I’m still wading through that myself. But… my friends have taught me that you don’t give up on people for that. Some people you just stick with, no matter what. And I’m sticking with you because you’re worth it, Aaron. So, sort your damned shit out. And however that turns out, I’ll still be here.”

Aaron huffs loudly, making Spencer’s hair flutter, and then shaking him in his grip a little angrily. He isn’t getting it.

“How the hell do I ‘sort my shit out’ when YOU are my shit, Spencer? How do I get past any of this when you’re _right here?_ ”

“Well, I won’t always be six inches from your face, you know,” he says dryly. “In fact, to begin with, I suggest that we stay several feet apart at all times.”

“The sarcasm isn’t appreciated,” Aaron says as he lets him go. It feels like he’s being mocked and he doesn’t like that. Not when he just bared himself so painfully. Spencer reaches out and yanks Aaron back against him by a handful of his coat. His eyes are blazing, like he’s just _done_ with the niceties of the day.

“Listen, do you think this will be easy for me? Do you imagine that the last two years have been all positive steps and vanquished challenges or something? I blew up my life. It was goddamned terrifying. I saw you all the time, everywhere. I had panic attacks over it. I missed you so much sometimes it was difficult to breathe. And do you have _any idea_ how shitty it is to fall in love with someone while _still being in love_ with someone else? So, don’t stand there feeling sorry for yourself, telling me that you love me but you can’t figure out your issues with me in the vicinity. I sorta said that same thing to you two years ago and it was bullshit then as well.”

Aaron blinks, taken aback by Spencer’s anger and determination. Is this something that Aaron has somehow forgotten about him? Or is this a part of the new guy he needs to learn about? Wait… has he decided that he’s going to be around Spencer long enough to learn about him?

“Why do you want to do this? Is it masochism? If you have a family, and friends, and Sam, then why do-”

Spencer’s hands lock onto Aaron’s jaw painfully and his eyes plead with him. “Because nothing’s ever over, Aaron!” Aaron can feel him trembling through their connection. “We’re not over. Look at us! We’re clearly not over…”

“Spence…” Aaron sags into Spencer’s grip and Spencer holds him like he’s the only thing protecting him from gravity.

“We’re a part of each other,” Spencer whispers, fingers stroking one side of Aaron’s jaw absently. “And maybe at the end of this… maybe we aren’t together. I dunno. But we’ll still _have_ each other. Just like I’ll always have Sammy. To me, that’s worth any amount of trouble, any amount of anxiety. That’s a world worth building.”

Aaron sighs, his arms sliding around Spencer and burying his face in his long, ludicrous hair. They sway together for a stretched moment and it just _feels so good_ despite the tension and anger zipping between them. Spencer’s arms slip and curl around Aaron’s back after a while, and he makes a series of sighs before he speaks again.

“So, what do you say? Are you with me?”

It’s Aaron’s turn to make a series of bolstering huffs. “I’m with you.” 

He doesn’t believe for a moment that this will work, but when he’s in Spencer’s arms there’s very little that he wouldn’t agree to. And a small voice within him says that this has a shot. Two years ago, Spencer wouldn’t have fought him this way. He wouldn’t have dared to propose something so risky and hurtful. Maybe he has changed. Maybe Aaron can change as well. Spencer clears his throat and forcefully pushes Aaron away. When Aaron looks at him, his eyes are glassy and his cheeks are scarlet, but he’s as serious as a handgun. 

“Okay then. At least two feet of mutual space between us at all times, and don’t be a jerk about answering my calls. That’s where we start. Deal?”

“Uh, yeah. Yes.” He feels like he’s suddenly landed in an Allied war room during the invasion of Normandy. Totally out of his depth.

“Good,” Spencer says as his eyes flick nervously over Aaron. Then he stuffs his hands in his pockets and shuffles oddly. “Just _try_ , okay?” he adds quietly. “That’s all I’m asking for.”

Aaron goes liquid in an instant. The statement isn’t angry or irritated, it’s pure, 100% hope. And nothing could get Aaron on board with something faster than Spencer’s sense of hope. “I will. I promise,” he murmurs and lets a small smile tag along with it. The smile is contagious and Spencer gives it back to him. Then he turns and walks away without another word, bouncing on his heels again like everything is going to be fine.


	15. Day 1

The screen comes to life as he settles back in his chair and adjusts himself to fit within the frame. He’s in his office, but the screens behind him are dark. Grinning with a child’s delight, he seems ageless, and, indeed, looks younger than he is with his newer, shorter hair. The face is the same though – it’s been the same for almost seven years now, a prospect that would’ve seemed impossible when this all first began. He’s wearing an expensive suit that is out of character for him, but it’s been carefully tailored to fit him alone. His shirt is pressed and collar done up, his tie subtle and knotted _just so._ He settles into his chair and sighs loudly, the grin never leaving his face.

“Hello,” he says, waving to the camera. “This is me. I used to begin these entries with _‘This is me today’_ , but this is who I am now, for good. And this is my last video journal, so… I guess this will always be me, won’t it?”

In the background, there’s muted conversations, music, the exclamations that come from a gathering of people. Somewhere, something crashes to the floor and a chorus of voices yell ‘Opa!’ and someone can be heard telling those voices to fuck off. He turns to face the ruckus and winces a little before turning back to the camera.

“I hope that wasn’t expensive,” he murmurs and then shrugs it off. “Never mind. Back to business. I have a lot to get to today…”

He leans forward, and the camera now catches the fine lines around his eyes that are the only detail that’s changed over time. 

“Today is my wedding day,” he proclaims with obvious satisfaction, eyes flicking around as if he can barely believe it and expects to wake up to another state of being. “Who would’ve thought this was even possible for me? I just always thought I’d be… temporary. Impermanent. But now, I am known. I matter enough to another person to be worthy of a lifetime of risk. I have a shot at having a family of my own.”

He blinks at some vague, indistinct point in wonder for an instant, his smile fading, and then reigniting almost immediately. “I’m so indescribably happy. I… I can’t…”

His voice cuts out and is covered by the background noise beyond him. A cheer rises and falls, and his mouth twitches when he hears it.

“My friends are out there waiting,” One hand flicks off to his left absently. “My _life_ is waiting, so I should make this quick.” He gathers himself and looks back into the camera. “It is _because_ my life is waiting that this will be my final video entry. I know I haven’t made one in a long time, but I’ve decided this will be the last because… I no longer want to spend more time considering my past than participating in my future. But, because I enjoy a complete story, I thought I ought to explain why.”

He settles back and takes a huge breath in, sunlight catching a glint from the ring on his left hand.

“I can honestly say that this day would’ve never come to pass without both Aaron and Sam. Without Aaron, I’d still be hiding in this house, alone, endlessly trading identities and being afraid of who I might be. It’s clear to me now that I needed his eyes in order to be known – to decide who I wanted to become. And I needed him to break my heart in order to give me the courage to realize that my identity wasn’t tied only to his eyes. I am _me_ , and I exist beyond what he saw in me. Though it was the worst thing I’ve experienced, I’m endlessly grateful that he broke up with me. I’ll never be able to tell him that, but… yeah. I needed that, and I needed him to do it.”

Spencer takes a moment, his brow furrowing as he swivels in his chair. Then he refocuses and continues.

“And that led me to Sam.” He smiles. “She’s equally important, but for different reasons. Aaron gave me an opportunity to be courageous, but Sam showed me how to _be_ courageous. She taught me to love with an openness and ferocity that I wouldn’t have known otherwise. She showed me that it’s okay to be afraid, but that it’s unacceptable to let that fear paralyze you. There’s just no way to quantify how important these two people have been in my life. I wish there was a way to let them know… to show my gratitude…”

“Let who know what?”

The voice comes from beyond the camera frame and then she walks into the edge of it as he twitches. Then he smiles at her.

“You, ya dork.”

“Really?” she smirks and leans against the corner of his desk in a way that her gown doesn’t easily accommodate. “Is that any way to talk to me at a wedding, Spence? Especially if I’m so damned important.”

“You are,” he says warmly as he leans towards her. “And you’re still a dork.”

“Well, I’m not gonna tell you you’re wrong about that…” she sighs and then points at him. “But that’s not why I’m here.”

“Why are you here?”

Sam blinks at him incredulously. “Ummmm, you’re the groom and you’re M.I.A. from your own reception. Duh. What the hell are you doing in here anyway?” Sam glares at the camera. “Can’t your tech-nerd obsession take a damned day off?”

“I’m making a video log.”

“Speeeeen-ceeeeeeer…” she whines dramatically. “REAL people are just outside, you know, and we’re so much more fun. And there’s booze and food and folks are breaking things… It’s a party and you’re _missing it._ ”

“No, Sam, listen. This is important,” he says while raising his hands a little. “I used to do this all the time, you see. But this is the last one because… today is the beginning of a new life for me, okay? One where I look forward instead of back. One where I hope for good things instead expecting everything to go to hell on me. Or _because_ of me.” He waits a moment as the party continues on in the distance. “I have to do this. It’s about making peace, and getting ready for what’s to come. Do you see?” he murmurs.

“Yeah, I do,” Sam sighs and reaches forward running her fingers through his trimmed curls. Spencer’s eyes slip shut as he leans into the touch with a small smile. “It’s still ridiculously nerdy of you, and your timing – as always – blows, but… I’m proud of you,” she says quietly. His eyes flick open again.

“You are?”

“Always.” She dips in and places a delicate kiss on his forehead, anchoring him with a hand along his jaw. He hums his appreciation softly. “You’re the most frustrating, complicated, labor-intensive random pick-up I’ve ever brought home from a bar.”

He chuckles. “Ummm, thanks, I think?”

She shakes him gently. “It’s a compliment. And you’re not the only one who’s changed. I’m different because of you too, you know. The trajectory of my life took a radical left turn when you wandered into it, all sullen and frown-y.” Sam makes a face to illustrate it.

“Oh,” he says quietly as he considers that. His gaze flicks over her dress, the way it holds her curves in. He raises a hand and lets it hang in mid-air, unsure of what to do with it, until one of her hands drops to it and laces their fingers together. “I guess I still get wrapped up in my own head too much. I never thought of my effect on others. Aside from… the obvious, I mean…”

“I know,” she smiles indulgently, fingers curling into his. “Which is why you’re cooped up in here when you should be outside with your friends getting drunk and prepping for an evening of legally-approved sex.” She waggles her eyebrows and he sputters as his cheeks get rosy. “Now, wrap up this sentimental nerditry of yours and get back to the party. That’s an order. If you don’t, I warn you: I’ll send in Aaron to shift your ass.”

Spencer blinks. “Why do you think he’ll motivate me more than you?”

She rolls her eyes at him. “Because he’s probably the only guy who brought a gun to a wedding.”

“Aaron’s not armed,” Spencer dismisses.

“Well, that’s a relief.”

“But I’m sure that half of the guests are packing.”

Sam looks a little shocked, as if she was joking.

“At the very least, Jeff is,” Spencer shrugs.

“That jerk,” Sam growls and looks back in the direction from which she came. “Gonna go give him a piece of my mind about _that._ ”

“Easy now. He claims he’s always had a thing for you, and reading him the riot act will only make him fall harder.” He smiles with cheek as Sam makes a face.

“You have the weirdest friends…”

“Ummm-hmmmm. The best, weirdest friends…” he enthuses.

Sam turns back to look at him, stroking his face gently. “Make it quick, okay? I wanna dance with you.”

“That sounds more dangerous than armed wedding guests,” he chuckles as they both lean in for a quick kiss. “But, yeah, I’ll be out in a sec. I promise.”

“Okay.” She runs her fingers through his hair once more and then exits the camera frame, the sounds of the party beyond flaring brightly for a moment before becoming muted once again. He sighs and stares at where she was, then swivels back to face the camera.

“Sam is… well, she’s pretty great. Smart, capable, imaginative, loving… sometimes I think she’s a little bit magic. And I guess that’s something coming from a guy who can change his face. I don’t know who I’d be… _where_ I’d be now without her. Even after everything that’s happened, she never fails to find a way to reinvent who we are to each other. Years ago, she promised to stick with me, and she’s kept her promise, even as, I’m sure, I’ve disappointed her. She just… adapts. It inspires me. And now – finally – I think we’ve found a way to give back to one another equally.” 

He leans in his chair as his eyes get unfocused for a moment. Then he smiles. “It’s _really_ satisfying, and hard to describe. I know I’m doing a poor job of it right now… how life-changing it is. Someday I’ll figure out the right words to tell her that, or maybe she’ll let me off the hook and just say that she _knows_ already. That’s how these things usually get solved with her.”

He falls silent for a while, though the faded glow of his smile remains as he runs a long finger methodically along the edge of his desk, over and over. He takes a breath in and picks up where he left off.

“This next step we’re taking… I’ll admit, it scares me a little. But she tells me not to worry, she can handle it. I know it’s what she wants, and that she’s committed to remaining independent, but I fret over her determination to do it alone.” He snorts softly and his mouth lifts in a knowing smirk. “She’d be quick to remind me that she’s _not_ doing it alone, and I’ll never truly be rid of her. As if I’d ever want to be rid of her…” he finishes softly.

He gets quiet again, the party thrumming away just beyond him. The light behind him flickers and shifts, wind blowing through leaves and scattering sunlight in new and complex patterns. He leans forward, his chair creaking slightly, and looks into the camera once more.

“My life has been so strange, for as long as I can remember. I used to be angry that I couldn’t explain the _why_ of so many things that happened to me. The irrationalness of my condition, the fears that seemed more like instincts than choices, the fierce way that I want to love others. As a scientist and a lover of the soothing certainty of mathematics, these… outliers enraged me for so long. They didn’t _fit_ into my understanding of the universe, and I felt betrayed by my learning and intellect as surely as I did by my father when he walked out on me. I felt small and abandoned in the flow of a callous and ungovernable existence. It all seemed pointless to me: merely surviving just so we could _stop_ one day. I didn’t realize how depressed I’d become but this… toxic uncertainty.”

He straightens his shoulders into dark, sharp lines under his suit, and takes another fortifying breath.

“I couldn’t see that the elements that give us reasons to live aren’t quantifiable. Math didn’t exactly let me down, but it doesn’t have the capacity to describe the subjective, unseen forces at play in our lives. Gravity? Yes. Time? Sure, to a degree. Velocity? Absolutely. But, love? Sorrow? Joy? Fear? Math doesn’t have language for those things. And it’s not as if they don’t matter, or they aren’t as integral to life as gravity or oxygen. So, the only concept we have for such intangibles is _magic._ And it’s taken my stubborn, analytical mind a long time to get comfortable with that. Now, I find, I’m a scientist who’s captivated by the architecture of the intangible.”

The noise of the party suddenly gets loud, and Spencer turns away from the camera and grins a moment later. Then a door shuts soundly and the party is muted once again.

“She was right. You are hiding in here.”

Spencer’s smile is all teeth and sharp laugh lines, his frame straightening as he sits at attention and leans towards the voice.

“What are you doing anyway?” the voice rumbles, and then a forehead and two dark eyes appear upside down at the top of the camera frame, out of focus but scowling nonetheless. Spencer chuckles behind him and the brow and eyes disappear.

“It’s a video log. Like I used to do,” Spencer says, still grinning. 

“Oh really.” 

Aaron appears at the side of Spencer’s desk, half-bent comically to look at the camera sideways with Spencer staring at him. His suit, too, is dark and custom tailored, but that’s not unusual. The years show on him more obviously, grey now claiming his sideburns and lower edges, marching steadily upwards to his crown. But his eyes are warm, belying the lines around them, and his mouth curls in an amused smile as he stares at the screen. He straightens and turns to look at Spencer, his smile broadening in the process.

“Should I be worried?” he asks dryly.

“No. It’s my last one.”

Aaron’s eyebrows rise in an unvoiced question.

“No more looking back, Aaron.” Spencer explains, his fingers starting to dance with excitement. “No more obsessing on mistakes I can’t change. No more trying to explain myself or what I’ve done. Today I’m happy and hopeful, and I can’t wait to find out what’s next. I’m saying goodbye to the guy who _needed_ these logs to seem real, to feel like he mattered. I’ve been sitting here talking about magic and how great it is.”

“Magic?”

“Uh-huh,” he nods, a flush racing up his throat. “Magic like you.”

Aaron gives him an indulgent smirk. “I’m not magic, Spencer. I’m completely real. I pay taxes, and yell at people who cut me off in traffic, and make unflattering noises first thing in the morning.”

“But you’re also the guy with a missing piece, just like I was missing a piece,” Spencer raises an instructional finger. “We were born a generation apart, on opposite sides of a continent. And yet we still met. Tell me that doesn’t sound a little bit like magic to you.”

Aaron makes an unconvinced sound, but continues smiling at Spencer. He takes a moment before he responds. “I’m glad you’re hopeful today,” he says quietly. “That’s what a wedding should be about.”

“This is Day 1 of a new life for me. That’s why I’m making the log. For a long time, I never thought I’d be enough for anyone. But, today, I became _a husband._ I needed some time to absorb it. I guess my mind is still a little bit blown by that.”

Aaron’s smile falls away, and then he leans in close, his left hand cupping Spencer’s jaw as the shifting sunlight glints off the thin band around one of his fingers. His mouth closes over Spencer’s as they both make a soft, involuntary noise together. He tugs at Spencer’s lips and then backs away only to recapture them again, and again. Spencer grasps Aaron’s wrist and leans into the kiss with a squeak of his chair, and that’s the only noise inside his office other than their stuttered breathing, and the sounds of the party waiting in the next room. When they come up for air, they are both the same shade of pink and Aaron’s whole body seems to have curled toward Spencer.

“Guess I’m a little blown away too,” he huffs. “I’ve wanted to kiss you like that since I got up this morning.”

Spencer grins. “Why didn’t you?”

Aaron shrugs, his cheeks getting a little rosier. “Wedding traditions. Nerves, maybe.”

“I’ve never thought of you as superstitious,” Spencer murmurs as he turns Aaron’s wrist so he can leave a kiss across his palm, and then over the new ring he’s wearing. Aaron makes a wet noise in the back of his throat, his fingers curling to brush Spencer’s cheek.

“I wasn’t going to do anything to jinx this,” he mumbles unsteadily. “Not when I’ve waited so long for it to happen.”

Spencer glances up at him. “What about after the vows? We were actually _ordered_ to kiss then.”

“It wasn’t legal until we signed the papers,” Aaron smirks. “You still could’ve made a run for it.” Spencer snorts and goes back to kissing Aaron’s fingers. “Besides, imagine the catcalls we’d have received. From Sam, or Jeff, or Jamie, or Rossi…”

“Yes, we have quite a collection of friends with inappropriate social graces,” he chuckles, and then looks back up at Aaron. “So, I guess it was a good plan to lock myself away in my office after all. So you’d have to come find me.”

Aaron dips in suddenly and kisses him again, with much more force this time. His fingers skim into Spencer’s short hair and hold him close, mouth roaming possessively and in a way that should only be done away from prying eyes. Spencer moans and arches up to change their angle and get more of Aaron, and when they finally pull apart, Spencer’s fingers have left unsightly creases in Aaron’s lapels, and Aaron’s chest is heaving from his lightheadedness.

“But we still have a house full of people we have to perform for, and toasts to make, and a flight to catch in less than four hours that I _will not_ be late for after all the lives I had to threaten at the Bureau in order to get a month’s vacation off at once,” Aaron gusts, nipping at Spencer’s mouth. “I want to see you naked in the Santorini sun as soon as humanly possible.”

Another kiss happens, which does nothing to help get either of them out of Spencer’s office.

“The sun in Greece is the same as the sun anywhere else,” Spencer gasps, looking wide-eyed and a little useless. Aaron grins and brushes his lips against Spencer’s cheek.

“You’re wrong,” he whispers. “I can’t wait to show you.”

“Well then, you’d better lay off the kissing or I’ll never finish this.” 

Spencer says it with dubious conviction while staring hard at Aaron’s mouth the entire time. Aaron laughs at him but pulls back to give him space. From beyond the door, someone yells, ‘Where the hell are they?’ and then a chorus of whoops and unsavory answers follow. Aaron rolls his eyes and then watches Spencer for a long moment.

“Are you okay with being away for so long?” he asks eventually.

Spencer blinks at him. “It’s only a month.”

“I’m talking about Sam,” Aaron murmurs, pushing his hands into his pockets.

Spencer sighs and then lifts his shoulder in a shrug. “She’s only at three months. She’ll be fine. She told us to go, remember?”

“I’m worried about her.”

Spencer chuckles and shakes his head. “She would _not_ appreciate that, and you know it. Anyway, shouldn’t worrying be my job?”

“Well, maybe I’m worried on your behalf then,” Aaron huffs. “And _why_ aren’t you worried anyway?”

Spencer looks at him directly and smiles. “Because she’s got this. She’s said so, and she wouldn’t lie about that. I trust Sammy.”

“I trust Sammy too, but this is-”

“It’s _her_ wish, Aaron,” Spencer leans forward and lays a reassuring hand on his arm. “Her choice. She has her life, and we have ours. Even though we’re always going to be connected to one another.” He takes a beat and leans a little closer. “There will be plenty of opportunities to worry when we get back, Aaron. And none of it will make a bit of difference on the outcome in the end, I’m sure. So, let’s get on that plane and be selfish with each other for a month. Okay?”

“Alright,” Aaron sighs, the lines of doubt remaining on his face. Then he shakes it off and smiles gently once more. “You really have come a long way, you know.”

Spencer smiles back with the same gentleness. “And we’re still here.”

“Yes, we are.”

He raises a finger and points. “Magic, Aaron.”

Aaron rolls his eyes again and waves the concept away. “Some scientist you are… _magic_ ,” he mutters and exits the camera frame. The sound of the gathering booms into the room. “Hurry up. I’m not gonna get saddled with drinking all of this champagne by myself.”

Spencer laughs as the door clicks shut. He sags back into his chair with an immense sigh before turning to face the camera again.

“I’m not going to keep him waiting. I’ve done that long enough…” he says, and then shuffles forward in his seat and crosses his arms on his desk. “So, I’m not sure what I’d tell the person who will never see this about how my story ends. Maybe just… whether you believe in magic, or think it’s just a void in our understanding of the universe, it has a roll to play in life. A completely inscrutable, frustrating role. I think I was made real, literally, by the eyes of the people I’ve grown to love. Maybe everyone is made that way, but with me, it wasn’t a metaphor. I dunno. All I know is that I survived magic, and that I’m moving on understanding that I don’t know where I’ll end up, and I’ve learned to be fine with that. Somehow, I’ve still managed to end up with everything I wanted.”

Spencer leans in close enough that the focus blurs, but even so, his grin can’t be hidden.

“What are the odds of _that?_ ” he laughs joyously, his whole body shaking with it.

He spends another long moment staring into the camera, grinning, and then his hand reaches up. The video fades to black.


End file.
